World roundup: December 15 2023
Stories from Yemen, Myanmar, Ukraine, and elsewhere
TODAY IN HISTORY
December 15, 1256: Having already received the surrender of the last Assassin imam, Rukn al-Din Khurshah, Mongolian warlord Hulagu and his army enter and destroy the main Assassin fortress at Alamut, completing their campaign against that infamous religious order.
December 15, 1925: Reza Pahlavi is crowned Shah of Iran.
MIDDLE EAST
ISRAEL-PALESTINE
US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan continued his “peace in somebody’s time” mission to the Middle East on Friday with a trip to Ramallah and a meeting with the leader of the wholly irrelevant Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas. Sullivan’s time in Israel has made plain a couple of things:
The Biden administration and the Netanyahu government are not on the same page with respect to the timing, phasing, or conduct of the war in Gaza, and likewise with respect to any plans for the postwar administration of the territory.
The Biden administration is absolutely, positively, not going to do anything to address point 1.
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