Voltaire Network

Pepe Escobar

Correspondent for Asia Times and an analyst for The Real News.

67 articles

English 9 Español 58

Erdogan risks the ’must go’ path

by Pepe Escobar

Erdogan risks the 'must go' path

4 June 2013
Recep Tayyip Erdogan is playing with fire as he belittles the popular protest spreading among a cross-section of secular Turkey and totally opposed to his highly personalized/autocratic mix of hardcore neoliberalism and conservative religion. The prime minister now deriding demonstrators as "looters" is the same man who said Egyptian strongman Hosni Mubarak "must listen to his people" and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad must go.

Syrian blood etches a new line in the sand

by Pepe Escobar

Syrian blood etches a new line in the sand

4 August 2012
A new line is being drawn in the Middle East sand by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, marked by Syrian blood sent gushing with the help of NATO mujahideen/jihadi death squads pursuing expansion of Sunni domination in the region. There’s no endgame yet in Syria - but, according to author and journalist Pepe Escobar, the sectarian game is just beginning.

Welcome to the ’Kurdish Spring’

by Pepe Escobar

Welcome to the 'Kurdish Spring'

31 July 2012
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has come out all guns blazing after Syrian President Bashar al-Assad quietly concluded a deal that handed the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Party control of key areas in the northeast. This raises prospects for Ankara’s worst nightmare: A semi-autonomous region coalescing with Kurds in Iraq, which turns the Turkish maxim of "zero problems with our neighbors" on its head.

Turkey has yet to understand the new deal struck between U.S. and Russia

Why Turkey won’t go to war with Syria

by Pepe Escobar

Why Turkey won't go to war with Syria

Sâo Paulo (Brazil) | 8 July 2012
The tension and likelihood of a world war because of the conflict in Syria is currently on the cards because certain countries are behaving like arsonists, especially Turkey, in continuing to offer a logistical base for mercenaries from "liberated" Libya. Saudi Arabia’s ruling House of Saud will keep providing the money to buy them weapons. As for Washington, London and Paris, they will continue to calibrate their tactics in the protracted anticipation of a NATO attack against Damascus.

"So long, towelheads"

by Pepe Escobar

"So long, towelheads"

20 December 2011
The Pentagon officially pronounced its US$3 trillion-and-counting, "war on terror"-related invasion, occupation and decimation of the Iraqi nation dead on Thursday even as the country prepared for a low-intensity Sunni-Shi’ite civil war and the Muslim world wondered whatever happened to the George W. Bush administration’s Greater Middle East.

War-mongering on an international scale

The age of the Reaper

by Pepe Escobar

The age of the Reaper

23 September 2011
Arrogance and shameless doublespeak reign supreme in the world of diplomacy. Respect for international law and human rights is a farce. Never has this come across so blatantly as in President Obama’s speech on 21 September before the UN General Assembly. Revealing in terms of the hypocrisy and imperialist interests that pervade Washington’s policies all over the world, the speech was also Obama’s crowning moment as an Israeli doormat.

See historical film

Libya: The real war starts now

by Pepe Escobar

Libya: The real war starts now

9 September 2011
Political, economic and social instability in Libya did not end with the fall of Tripoli and the alleged victory of NATO rebels. Gaddafi’s decision to go underground has caught everyone by surprise. The unfolding scenario is reminiscent of Omar Mukhtar’s legacy, the Libyan leader who struggled against Italian colonialism for nearly twenty years, from 1912 to 1931. Everything can still change in a country where most of the population hasn’t said its final word yet and the neo-colonial powers in place are very fragile.

Libya’s new colonialization

Disaster capitalism swoops over Libya

by Pepe Escobar

Disaster capitalism swoops over Libya

Sâo Paulo (Brazil) | 25 August 2011
Think of the new Libya as the latest spectacular chapter in the Disaster Capitalism series. Instead of weapons of mass destruction, we had R2P, short for "responsibility to protect". Instead of neo-conservatives, we had humanitarian imperialists.

Everything You Need to Know About Oil, Gas, Russia, China, Iran, Afghanistan and Obama

Pipelineistan goes Af-Pak

by Pepe Escobar

Pipelineistan goes Af-Pak

14 May 2009
Nothing of significance takes place in Eurasia without an energy angle. In this insightful analysis, global reporter Pepe Escobar focuses on the ongoing energy struggle across "Pipelineistan" and the Great Game of business, diplomacy and proxy war between Russia and the U.S. He delves into tumultuous Central and South Asia and the "AfPak" battleground. There, U.S. planes and unmanned aerial drones are killing combatants as well as civilians, while, in Afghanistan, Washington continues to build new military bases. Under the carnage of war, courses the Liquid War. Just how the energy flows and through which territories controlled by whom can make - quite literally - a world of difference, even though it rarely captures our attention.

To send a message

Most popular

Why Turkey won’t go to war with Syria
Turkey has yet to understand the new deal struck between U.S. and Russia

Pipelineistan goes Af-Pak
Everything You Need to Know About Oil, Gas, Russia, China, Iran, Afghanistan and Obama

Erdogan risks the ’must go’ path

Welcome to the ’Kurdish Spring’

Syrian blood etches a new line in the sand

The age of the Reaper
War-mongering on an international scale

Disaster capitalism swoops over Libya
Libya’s new colonialization

Libya: The real war starts now
See historical film

"So long, towelheads"