Commentaries, Analysis, And Editorials -- December 10, 2015

Outside the Turkish Embassy in Baghdad. Last week, Turkish troops rolled across the border and took up positions near Mosul. CREDIT PHOTOGRAPH BY KHALID AL-MOUSILY / REUTERS / LANDOV

Dexter Filkins, New Yorker: What Are Turkish Troops Doing in Northern Iraq?

Last week, several hundred Turkish troops, backed by tanks and artillery, rolled across the Iraqi border and took up positions near the city of Mosul, which has been held, since last year, by ISIS. The Turks have since reinforced the battalion with warplanes and intelligence officers. At the same time, the airspace over northern Iraq has been closed for most of the past ten days, because Russian cruise missiles, fired from ships on the Black Sea, have been flying through the region—sometimes even over downtown Erbil.

It’s not entirely clear why, or with whose permission, the Turks ordered their soldiers across the border. The Iraqi Prime Minister, Haider al-Abadi, protested loudly. So has the United States. So what happened? And why are the Turks sending their troops into the volatile country, anyway?

Commentaries, Analysis, And Editorials -- December 10, 2015

Breaking the ISIS economy, bit by bit -- Howard LaFranchi, CSM

Can Syria’s Rebels Be Brought into the Political Process? -- Priyanka Boghani, Frontline

What to do against ISIS? Congress largely agrees, Obama doesn't. -- Francine Kiefer, CSM

Turkey's Time Has Come -- Reva Bhalla, Stratfor

Resisting Beijing’s Global Media Influence -- Sarah Cook, The Diplomat

Putin's Pivot East Isn't Working -- Bloomberg editorial

Russian Jet Fighters in Asia: Why Politics Still Matters -- Benjamin David Baker, The Diplomat

Putin's Russia: The Year Of The Troll -- Brian Whitmore, RFE

Stolen Art Hampers Ukraine's EU Progress -- Leonid Bershidsky, Bloomberg

Cubans Still Fleeing Castro While They Can -- Anna-Cat Brigida, Daily Beast

Argentina's Long, Long History of Underperformance -- Justin Fox, Bloomberg

Inside Justin Trudeau’s ‘turbo-Zen’ army -- Paul Wells, MaCleans

What a Commander-in-Chief Should Do -- Col. Kenneth Allard USA (Ret.), Real Clear Defense

The Still Unresolved Questions of the Paris Climate Agreement -- Robinson Meyer, The Atlantic

The ‘electronic Pearl Harbor’: Eighteen years ago I was the first to use that term publicly. It was the wrong analogy then. Not anymore. -- John Hamre, Politico

The shrinking impact of mainstream media -- Patrick Maines, The Hill