Ignoring uncomfortable truths about the Syria conflict keeps getting in the way of sober policymaking. The regime, aided by its Russian and Iranian allies, already has recaptured most rebel-held territory.

It is high time that the US, and especially the UK, accepted that their war in Syria has been lost – or at least that their original objective, the removal of Bashar al-Assad has not been achieved. Are they prepared to pursue the fight now at the expense of Idlib’s 3 million civilians?

It is one thing to welcome investigations into Russia’s involvement in the 2016 election, and to push for electoral and anti-corruption reforms that might help prevent such interference in the future. It is quite another to allow some of the world’s most fervent jingoists to assume the vanguard of the anti-Trump opposition…

Western commentary on Russia is often so far removed from reality as to appear deranged.

The investigation of the Trump campaign, his administration, family and associates has gone on for more than two years without any serious evidence supporting the Russia-Trump collusion theory.

NATO expansion keeps stumbling ahead like the zombie policy that it is.

It is a huge irony of U.S. special counsel Robert Mueller’s inquiry into alleged collusion between U.S. President Donald J. Trump’s 2016 election campaign and the Kremlin, that the biggest fish caught to date is charged with the doing the opposite of colluding with Russia…

A quick explainer video…

The dogmatic pursuit of human rights may make people feel virtuous, but in the end morality has to rest on practical realities, and those dictate that the strategy of ‘stubborn resistance’ is deeply counterproductive.

Russian President Vladimir Putin offered Japanese leader Shinzo Abe a peace treaty without preconditions by the end of the year. Decades after the end of WWII, the two states have yet to sign an agreement.