News keeps coming!: Iran undermines Turk-Kurd peace pact, ancient Persian chemical warfare, Army col’s, Uighurs, etc.
Iran is said by the Turks to be trying to undermine the Turkish peace deal with the Kurds. China wants closer defense ties with said Iranians. To the south, Syrian rebel groups are fighting near the Iraqi border. This is an interesting part of the world. Recently archaeologists found evidence that in the ancient ...
- Iran is said by the Turks to be trying to undermine the Turkish peace deal with the Kurds. China wants closer defense ties with said Iranians.
- To the south, Syrian rebel groups are fighting near the Iraqi border. This is an interesting part of the world. Recently archaeologists found evidence that in the ancient town of Dura Europos, Persian forces besieging the Romans in 256 AD successfully used a chemical weapon — a gas — and killed 19 Roman troops.
- To the southeast, fighting in Tarmiyah, a strong candidate for the roughest little town in Iraq, killed some Awakening members.
- In the world of good Army colonels and not-so-good ones, Col. Everett Spain, currently finishing a Ph.D. at Harvard, was awarded the Soldier’s Medal for his actions during the bombing of the Boston Marathon. I also am hearing that an Army colonel is in trouble for pulling his 9mm pistol and threatening a staff officer with it.
- The government of Trinidad and Tobago called an emergency meeting of its own NSC.
- The Lawfare blog, which is dependable for its facts, for its smart interpretations, and for its slightly right-of-center views, is now carrying advertisements for jockey underwear that costs $24 a pop. Do you think a left-of-center blog would prefer to advertise boxer underwear?
- Great column on the nature of hard work. This is why everyone should have a manual job as a teenager. When people tell me how hard writing is, I think, “They never worked in a restaurant.”
- Moving right along, there was a shootout on the Vietnamese-Chinese border, apparently involving a group of Uighurs.
- There apparently is a CIA weapons depot in Boerne, Texas. This confirms everything that New Yorkers have always believed about Texans. And the CIA.
- Yow. Cinco de and all that.
Thomas E. Ricks is a former contributing editor to Foreign Policy. Twitter: @tomricks1
More from Foreign Policy

America Is a Heartbeat Away From a War It Could Lose
Global war is neither a theoretical contingency nor the fever dream of hawks and militarists.

The West’s Incoherent Critique of Israel’s Gaza Strategy
The reality of fighting Hamas in Gaza makes this war terrible one way or another.

Biden Owns the Israel-Palestine Conflict Now
In tying Washington to Israel’s war in Gaza, the U.S. president now shares responsibility for the broader conflict’s fate.

Taiwan’s Room to Maneuver Shrinks as Biden and Xi Meet
As the latest crisis in the straits wraps up, Taipei is on the back foot.