World roundup: January 8 2025

Stories from Lebanon, Ivory Coast, Moldova, and elsewhere

I want to open tonight’s newsletter by expressing my condolences to those of you who have been affected by the devastating southern California wildfires. I hope you and your loved ones are out of harm’s way.

TODAY IN HISTORY

January 8, 1815: US forces commanded by Andrew Jackson defeat a larger British army in the Battle of New Orleans. Regarded in US collective memory as the climax of the War of 1812, even though it took place more than two weeks after the Treaty of Ghent officially ended that conflict, the battle is mostly noteworthy for its effect on American morale. Jackson’s victory allowed Americans to believe that what had otherwise been a fairly dismal war for the US (plans to annex Canada were quashed and British forces sacked Washington DC) had ended with a rousing US victory. The battle also made Jackson into a national hero, a status he parlayed into a two term presidency starting with the 1828 election.

January 8, 1926: Abdulaziz ibn Saud is crowned king of the Hejaz, adding that kingdom to his original dominion in the Nejd. This was the result of a 1924-1925 war between the Saudis and the Hashemite rulers of the Hejaz, their second such conflict. The British government, which had been paying Ibn Saud to leave the Hashemites alone but decided to stop doing that in 1923, opted not to intervene and thereby ensured a Saudi victory. This personal union lasted for six years and became the nucleus of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. In 1932, Ibn Saud unified the Hejaz and the Nejd (as well as al-Hasa, east of the Nejd) into a single state, to which he later added Asir, Najran, and Jizan after a 1934 war with Yemen.

MIDDLE EAST

SYRIA

In an effort to find a bit of positive news amid the negative, let’s start by noting that the National Museum of Damascus reopened on Wednesday for the first time since the toppling of Bashar al-Assad’s government one month ago. The facility apparently weathered a spate of looting that hit Damascus in the immediate wake of Assad’s departure, in part thanks to a detachment of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham fighters who were tasked with securing it at the request of museum officials.

Elsewhere the news is not quite so uplifting, particularly as it pertains to the conflict between Turkish-backed “Syrian National Army” militants and the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces group in northern Syria. Despite a supposed US-brokered ceasefire around the frontline town of Manbij, scores of fighters on both sides have been killed in clashes between those factions in recent days. Civilians are dying too—at least according to the SDF, which is claiming that a Turkish drone strike killed an unknown number of them at the Tishrin Dam (near Manbij) on Tuesday. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan has been making threats about a full-scale Turkish military invasion to wipe out the SDF, or more specifically its Kurdish (YPG) component, and while US officials insist they’re working to prevent that it’s unclear how effective they can be.