via LobeLog
by Mark N. Katz
The prospects for improved ties between Washington and Tehran have dramatically increased since Hassan Rouhani replaced Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president of Iran in August 2013. This has made several parties quite nervous, including American conservatives (who fear it is a trick) as well as Iranian conservatives, Arab Gulf [...]
via LobeLog
by Robert E. Hunter
Following the US-Russian agreement, the Syrian government’s chemical weapons must now be destroyed. To do this without putting UN employees at impossible risk, the Syrian civil war must also stop. To do that requires a plan by the Obama administration and others. To do that requires a realistic [...]
via LobeLog
by Mark N. Katz
The international relations of the Syrian conflict has taken center stage in recent days. President Obama first announced that he would launch a military strike against Syria in response to the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons against its internal opponents in August, but he also said that [...]
via LobeLog
by Thomas W. Lippman
Whenever a Saudi Arabian king or senior prince publicly criticizes U.S. policy, they inevitably touch off speculation about how the Saudis may be rethinking their security alliance with the United States.
The Saudis have lost confidence in the Americans…the Saudis are fed up with Washington’s support for Israel…The [...]
by Alireza Nader
via USIP
Iran has mixed feelings and conflicting interests in the Syrian crisis. Tehran has a strategic interest in opposing chemical weapons due to its own horrific experience during the 1980-1988 war with Iraq. For years, President Saddam Hussein’s military used chemical weapons that killed thousands of Iranian soldiers. So [...]
by Jasmin Ramsey
*This post has been updated
Yesterday we charted the way Secretary of State John Kerry’s seemingly off-handed answer to a question about how Syria could deter a US strike morphed into what’s now being referred to as the “Lavrov Proposal“. As far as I can [...]
via LobeLog
by Mark N. Katz
Why has Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov made his dramatic proposal for the Syrian government to not only put its chemical weapons under international control, but also destroy them? There are two possibilities.
This could be a Russian attempt to avert the US military strike on Syria that [...]
via LobeLog
by Jasmin Ramsey
You’re no doubt aware by now of a proposal by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov for Syria to hand over its (still only accidentally acknowledged) chemical weapons to international control, which his Syrian counterpart Walid al-Moualem said Syria “welcomes”. Syrian ally Russia was jumpstarted into action after [...]
Don’t Hold Your Breath
by Andrew J. Bacevich
via Tom Dispatch
Sometimes history happens at the moment when no one is looking. On weekends in late August, the president of the United States ought to be playing golf or loafing at Camp David, not making headlines. Yet Barack Obama chose Labor Day weekend [...]
by Robert E. Hunter
“…my credibility is not on the line. The international community’s credibility is on the line.”
– President Barack Obama, Stockholm, September 4, 2013
President Obama and other US supporters of attacking Syria in response to its alleged use of chemical weapons have based much of their argument on the issue [...]
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