Darius Shahtahmasebi

Darius Shahtahmasebi is a New Zealand-based legal and political analyst who focuses on US foreign policy in the Middle East, Asia and Pacific region. He is fully qualified as a lawyer in two international jurisdictions.

Trump’s Foreign Policy Pushes Pakistan Into China’s Open Arms

Washington’s recent behavior has pushed Pakistan into the waiting and open arms of America’s traditional rivals, China and Iran.

Darius Shahtahmasebi
By Darius Shahtahmasebi
From left, Afghanistan Foreign Minister Salahuddin Rabbani, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Pakistani Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif shake hands after a press conference for the 1st China-Afghanistan-Pakistan Foreign Ministers' Dialogue held in Beijing, China, Dec. 26, 2017. (AP/Ng Han Guan)

Donald Trump’s decision to ring in the New Year by simultaneously demonizing both Iran and Pakistan on Twitter has already backfired tremendously. Following threats that the U.S. would withhold aid to Pakistan, the U.S. confirmed it would withhold $255 million in aid (which has now become $900 million) and is now reportedly threatening a roughly $2

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Trump Continues Obama-Era Saber Rattling With Russia By Arming Ukraine

The Russia-obsessed corporate media continues to peddle the narrative that Donald Trump has turned the United States into a client-state of Russia, even while he directly provokes the former Soviet Union by providing Russia’s foe — Urkaine — with the largest lethal assistance to a country on its border.

Darius Shahtahmasebi
By Darius Shahtahmasebi

KIEV, UKRAINE (Analysis) -- Despite the mainstream media’s insistence that U.S. President Donald Trump is some sort of compromised Russian lackey, the fact is that at the end of last year, his administration approved the largest U.S. commercial sale of lethal defensive weapons to Ukraine since 2014. This is a move that clearly infuriates and angers

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ISIS and the US Could Turn the Philippines Into the Next Syria

Where ISIS goes, the U.S. military will surely follow. In fact, the U.S. now has a documented history of allowing ISIS to travel to the places that it is vying to bomb.

Darius Shahtahmasebi
By Darius Shahtahmasebi
Protesters are blocked by police as they attempt to march closer to the U.S. Embassy to denounce the U.S. military's role in the ongoing battle between Government forces and ISIS militants who laid siege to Marawi city in southern Philippines, June 12, 2017 in Manila, Philippines. (AP/Bullit Marquez)

Opinion -- The fight against ISIS in Iraq and Syria is drawing to its inevitable close. Though the U.S. will stay in Syria for as long as possible, it already appears to have essentially conceded to its Russian counterpart. There will be little else it can do except act as a buffer to the Syrian government along the strategic Al-Tanf border

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Washington’s Pre-War Demonization Formula Is Targeting Iran, Again

U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley’s grandiose performance in front of the UN on December 15 should send shivers down the spines of those who remember Colin Powell’s equally disturbing performance in the months leading up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. This is just the beginning of the a new media campaign against Iran with regime change as the end goal.

Darius Shahtahmasebi
By Darius Shahtahmasebi
U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley speaks in front recovered segments of a rocket the U.S. and Saudi Arabia allege came from Iran during a press briefing at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling, Dec. 14, 2017, in Washington. (AP/Cliff Owen)

WASHINGTON (Analysis) -- The United States has had Iran in its crosshairs for decades and current media coverage indicates that US-Iranian relations are only getting worse. In 1953, the CIA overthrew Iran’s democratically elected leader, Mohammed Mossadegh, and replaced him with a brutal U.S.- and U.K.-backed dictator, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

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ISIS’ “Diaspora” Brings US New Opportunities for Its Geopolitical Agenda

The fall of ISIS and in Syria and Iraq signals a new era in the groups future. With eyes now on other battlefield theatres, the group is continually expanding in countries central to the U.S. vs Russian war of influence.

Darius Shahtahmasebi
By Darius Shahtahmasebi
U.S. Soldiers with Task Force Iron maneuver an M-777 howitzer, so it can be towed into position at Bost Airfield, Afghanistan. Reversing his past calls for a speedy exit, U.S. President Donald Trump recommitted the United States to the 16-year-old war in Afghanistan, declaring U.S. troops must "fight to win." He pointedly declined to disclose how many more troops will be dispatched to wage America's longest war. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Justin T. Updegraff, Operation Resolute Support via AP)

Damascus (Analysis) -- ISIS’ so-called caliphate is, by all accounts, crumbling in Iraq and Syria as Russia, Syria, Hezbollah and Iraq have all claimed victory over the terror group. While this may mean that the ISIS’ stranglehold over significant portions of territory in these two countries may, in the days to come, be effectively ended, it

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Israel Pursuing War against Iran Obliquely through Al-Qaeda and Directly via Airstrikes

Washington’s obsession with attempting to intervene in Syria was never really aimed at Syria, but was instead aimed at containing Iranian influence for the benefit of the Israeli government. Now, with the failure of that mission, Israel has decided it needs to step up its own game.

Darius Shahtahmasebi
By Darius Shahtahmasebi
Two men, not specified which group of rebels, ride a motorcycle towards an abandoned UN base at Syria's Quneitra border crossing between Syria and the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, Monday, Nov. 28, 2016. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

TEL AVIV, ISRAEL (Analysis) -- On Saturday, December 2, 2017, Israeli missiles struck a Syrian Army arms depot (allegedly belonging to Iran), which in turn prompted Syria to activate its air defenses, resulting in the destruction of two Israeli missiles. The facility targeted in the December strike was well-known to the Israeli authorities for

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UN Claims Syrian Gov’t Behind Chemical Attacks — But Where’s The Motive?

Considering respected experts have disputed the claim that the Syrian government launched the chemical weapons attack, the question of motive is an important one.

Darius Shahtahmasebi
By Darius Shahtahmasebi
Photograph of men in Khan Sheikhoun in Syria, allegedly inside a crater where a sarin-gas bomb landed.

Analysis -- A new report from the U.N. has concluded Syrian government forces are to blame for a chemical weapons attack in April of this year in Khan Sheikhoun. The report from the U.N. and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM) says the investigators are “confident that the Syrian Arab

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