Tony Badran — Hoover Institution
The “transnational”: this is how Qassem Soleimani, the former head of Iran’s Qods Force, who was killed in a January U.S. missile strike in Baghdad, is described in Hezbollah-run schools in Lebanon. Soleimani, who commanded the militias prosecuting Iran’s wars in the region and who managed the Islamic Republic’s realm from Iraq to Lebanon, met his end as the Iranian order in those two countries was under severe stress, adding to the Iranian regime’s domestic troubles as it reels under the weight of U.S. sanctions. Read More
Aykan Erdemir and Philip Kowalski — Al Arabiya
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin met in Moscow for six hours on Thursday to negotiate a ceasefire deal that intended to end clashes in northwest Syria’s Idlib province, which resulted in the deaths of 60 Turkish soldiers since the start of February. Although the two leaders have significant differences over the future of Idlib and Syria, Erdogan’s dependence on Russia, both politically and economically, limited his ability to pivot away from the Kremlin and realign with Turkey’s traditional allies in NATO. Read More