Many feared this moment was coming. It is now unfolding. Syrian govt forces are pushing deeper into Kurdish-held areas in northeastern Syria, forcing the SDF out, while Kurdish fighters prepare to defend what remains. A ceasefire is in place until Hasekeh is delivered to the govt or else...

In 1979, almost no one believed the Shah would fall until he did. Intelligence agencies, opposition leaders, and foreign governments all misread the moment. Why? When does repression stop containing dissent and start feeding it?

The capture of Nicolás Maduro in Caracas has compelled a necessary return to the study of the "oil curse"—or resource curse—a paradox where geological abundance serves as a grim catalyst for institutional ruin, endemic conflict, and predatory foreign intervention.

My book is recommended by @ezgibasaran.bsky.social on her interesting blog on political devolopments in Turkey and Middle East: www.angleanchorvoice.co.uk/p/books-to-g...

As the year ends, I find myself wondering how politics feels to you right now. Not in terms of positions or camps, but as a lived condition. Does it feel degraded, repetitive, increasingly shameless? Enshittified?

A media scandal in Turkey is not really about scandal. It is about protection collapsing, intelligence rivalries, and elite factionalism as succession looms. This is War of Succession in Turkey, Vol. 2. Sex, Drugs and Politics of Power - open.substack.com/pub/ezgibasa...

A year after Assad, Syria stands between relief and dread. Minorities remain cautious, sectarianisation still shapes politics and the new order under Sharaa feels both durable but also unpredictable. Here I look at at how sectarianism was made and why it persists open.substack.com/pub/ezgibasa...

Turkey’s Kurdish negotiation process launched last year with the unexpected involvement of Devlet Bahçeli, was never about electoral engineering but about managing the regional risks that have intensified since October 7 and the end of Assad’s rule.

This week I look at three intertwined stories that display the current political landscape across the Muslim world and its diasporas.

Issue #282! With @ezgibasaran.bsky.social and @adasmichalski.bsky.social: 1. Bahçeli volunteers for Öcalan meeting 2. Zelenskyy visit centers on peace talks 3. Pesticide suspected in tourist family tragedy 4. Domestic and diplomatic wraps 5. MP protests water-saving tip amid drought

Syria under al-Sharaa is not what many imagine. The state is increasingly run by technocrats who returned from exile, and figures like Haykal speak the language of experience, expertise and toolkits that once defined the AKP’s mentorship of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Ennahda in Tunisia.

I listened to him at Oxford and have read @timothysnyder.bsky.social work closely over the years. He explains politics and history in ways that are both beautiful and unexpected. He has long been an optimist, or in his words someone with a vast political imagination.

Syria remains the key that fits too many locks. What happens there now, in this narrow interval between wars and bargains, will shape the region for years. The players: Sharaa, Erdoğan, Trump, Netanyahu, and the Kurdish movement.

📌 I shared my two cents in this long article written by Stefano Mazzola for @mm-ilfoglio-bot.bsky.social dedicated to #Turkey's mediation role alongside @berkesen.bsky.social and @ezgibasaran.bsky.social 🇹🇷

This week, I share a piece by a prominent Turkish intellectual, Dr Cengiz Aktar, who reflects on his encounter with the Oxford Union and why he 'regrets the Ottoman Empire’s demise.' www.angleanchorvoice.co.uk/p/oxford-uni...

Turkey’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and intelligence chief İbrahim Kalın have become the two most scrutinised figures in the Erdoğan government. Both operate where diplomacy meets intelligence and both are now central to how Israel reads Turkey’s future.

The angle I took in examining the Sharm el-Sheikh summit(and the consequences of Trump praising Netanyahu, Sisi, and Erdoğan) was almost identical to how @RoryStewartUK framed it in his podcast this week: the reign of recklessness, excess, and the diffusion of authoritarianism.

It is, of course, a relief that the killing in Gaza has stopped. For now. The ceasefire brought scenes of reunion and release, but there are other angles worth attention. In Sharm el-Sheikh, the so-called peace summit became something else entirely : a Trumpian transposition of order.

Trump: "The person who actually got the Nobel Prize called today, called me, and said 'I'm accepting this in honor of you, because you really deserved it.' A really nice thing to do. I didn't say 'Then give it to me, though.'"

As we mark the second anniversary of October 7, I want us to look at what it revealed about Israel, Palestine, and the world at large. We are at a crossroads.

Trump’s new “day after” plan for Gaza proposes a technocratic Palestinian committee overseen by a Trump-chaired “Board of Peace,” with Tony Blair as steward.

A federal judge ruled that the Trump administration violated the First Amendment by deporting noncitizen student activists. nyti.ms/4mG1pck

“The U.S. has a complex political system with checks and balances and many veto points.”

This week’s Angle, Anchor, and Voice post on Erdoğan and Trump was featured in the Italian daily @ilfoglio.bsky.social A nice surprise and many thanks to Stefano Mazzola.

Trump and Erdoğan meet in New York. Two CEOs posing as statesmen. I wrote this week’s Substack as a three-course meal of troubles: hard to digest, but lessons from Turkey for Trump’s America.

Italy sends assistance to aid Italian citizens on board Gaza flotilla: "I have authorised the immediate intervention of the Navy's frigate Fasan, which was sailing north of Crete and is heading towards the area," Italian Defence Minister Guido Crosetto said in a statement.

Millions spent on Trump visit. Red carpets, Royals in coronets and golden dining services too. And all he offers in return are petulant racist insults about our capital city and our mayor. What a singular lack of decorum, grace, and courtesy. Fuck him and his damp hands and his nicotine yellow wig

The president of France, Emmanuel Macron, experienced a frustration that many New Yorkers know all too well. He got stuck on a Manhattan street corner. It had been closed off for President Trump’s motorcade during the UN General Assembly. nyti.ms/46F5esx

It’s disheartening to see comedians comedy-wash a brutal regime that crushes free speech in unimaginable ways. I wrote about this a couple of weeks ago here: open.substack.com/pub/ezgibasa...

How can this be not from the pages of @theonion.com

Trump: "We've got a lot of stupid people in this country running things."

Excellent essay, well worth reading:

This is about Lea Ypi’s remarkable new book Indignity, my grandmother, her grandmother, Salonica, Istanbul, Tirana and the long shadows of empire. Ypi recounts her grandmother’s life as a story of dignity. Dignity in the fate of a woman. In the bonds of a family. In the decline of an empire.

This week I wrote about 2 developments. 1) Israel’s strike on Hamas in Doha unsettled Turkey as much as Qatar. For the AKP’s circle, long tied to Hamas leadership+bound in a strategic alliance with Doha, the attack signals that confrontation with Israel can no longer be treated as a distant risk.

🧵Comedy-washing: Riyadh is hosting its first comedy festival with Dave Chappelle, Kevin Hart, Bill Burr, Louis C.K. and more. Comedians who dissect “cancel culture” on their podcasts stay silent on Saudi repression. Comedy is supposed to rock the boat. Surely not this time! Enjoy Saudi!

🧵 Which Syrian army should the Kurds join? On 10 March 2025, Mazlum Abdi signed a deal with Damascus to join Syria’s “new state institution.” But what does “joining” mean when the Syrian army barely exists and Turkey insists 70,000 SDF fighters dissolve into it?

Mariam Abu Dagga: Gaza journalist killed in Israeli strike ‘carried her camera into the heart of the field’

On August 15, 2025, authorities detained İnan Güney—the mayor of Istanbul’s Beyoğlu district—alongside about 40 other municipal officials in a sweeping “corruption” probe. Around half have been formally arrested and the rest placed under judicial control. 🧵

For some of us, this is the essential question: How does a genocide continue? What sustains the world’s complacency and enables its complicity? Let's consider a few answers with the help of Omar el-Akkad and Quinn Slobodian...

Turkey’s recent panic about “Lebanonization” rests on a fundamental misunderstanding of Ottoman history. Everyone’s worried about identity politics breaking the Republic. As if they weren’t baked into it from the start.

Was Syria’s new president engineered by a British NGO? In this piece, I clarify the latest allegations about London’s involvement. These claims miss the point and erase local agency. open.substack.com/pub/ezgibasa...

From reproductive violence to algorithmic apartheid, Israel’s war on Gaza is designed to erase futures. We should by now, see the architecture of genocide from bodies and births to clouds and codes. open.substack.com/pub/ezgibasa...

Europe "watches closely" as Israel turns Gaza into concentration camps. The only European voice exposing the system behind the genocide is sanctioned by the US. An utter disgrace. All the more reason to turn to her report. open.substack.com/pub/ezgibasa...

I spoke to @dwnewstoday.bsky.social on PKK’s burning of arms: youtu.be/Ut2vdoLxoJI?...

The PKK burns arms. So, is this really the end of the Kurdish conflict? Or just the end of one phase? Let’s walk through the key questions briefly, and clearly. open.substack.com/pub/ezgibasa...

Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize- by Netanyahu. Grok insults both Atatürk and Erdoğan. Parody is the zeitgeist + Öcalan explains why the PKK is disbanding. All here: open.substack.com/pub/ezgibasa...

The RTEregime appears intent on suffocating the main opposition CHP by seizing its key metropolitan municipalities through corruption charges. Mayors of Adana, Antalya, and Adıyaman were detained. There’s talk that Ankara’s may be next. Erdoğan continues to criminalize those who take to the streets.

Two flashpoints: The tribal politics of Turkey flare up over an alleged cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad. And Israel's real target at Glastonbury. open.substack.com/pub/ezgibasa...

As Israel reshapes the region with bombs, the Kurds may now determine whether the new Middle East burns or holds. open.substack.com/pub/ezgibasa...

It’s terrifying that the future of the Middle East partly hinges on this juvenile, unserious man. What is this—MIGA? Is this some kind of joke? How we’re meant to cope with this is beyond me.