by Jim Lobe
via IPS News
Despite Thursday’s announcement that President Barack Obama has decided to provide direct military assistance to Syrian rebels, what precisely the administration has in mind remains unclear.
Analysts here are also questioning whether the decision is part of a deliberate strategy – and, if so, what that strategy [...]
via Lobe Log
by Wayne White
The Obama Administration finally has decided to provide lethal military support to the Syrian rebels. Yet, if Washington’s main focus is providing arms, a detailed review of just that one option suggests it probably would not be enough to prevent some additional regime successes. Moreover, giving arms only [...]
by Peter Jenkins
A whiff of bias in much media reporting of the conflict in Syria has made it hard to judge the situation there with confidence. Nonetheless, recent words and deeds suggest that Western governments have started to lose confidence in the eventual victory of rebel forces (whom one is supposed to refer to [...]
via Lobe Log
by Wayne White
Reacting to several recent developments in the Syrian war, Lebanon’s Hezbollah organization has escalated dramatically its direct military role in that fighting. This is Hezbollah’s first major foray on the ground into a conflict inside another country, and it will put strains on its military cadres as well [...]
via Lobe Log
by Mitchell Plitnick
The Obama Administration’s options for avoiding deeper involvement in Syria are dwindling fast. With Russia and Hezbollah increasing their activities on the Syrian front, Obama may have a very hard time fending off the growing domestic and international pressure to take action, if that is what he still [...]
via Lobe Log
by Wayne White
The Biblical quotation, “whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap” could not be more relevant to what Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s near unremitting hostility toward Iraq’s powerful Sunni Arab minority has generated: a rising drumfire of mostly Sunni Arab bombings aimed at Maliki’s Shi’a base as [...]
via Lobe Log
by Henry Precht
Secretary John Kerry made an unannounced stop in Baghdad Sunday to press the Iraqis to deny permission for Iranian overflights that might be carrying arms to Syria. There was no immediate word whether the Shia-led government would agree or not. To do so would mean offending Tehran, its [...]
via Lobe Log
by Wayne White
With a long history of misguided, damaging American intervention and meddling in the Middle East, the reported CIA effort to target the al-Nusra Front in Syria by helping Iraqi anti-terrorism units to attack its roots in Iraq seems to be the former and possibly destined to be the [...]
via Lobe Log
by Wayne White
Amidst rumors that Washington finally decided to provide arms at least to selected Syrian opposition fighters, Secretary of State John Kerry announced that the US would do little more than increase its non-lethal aid to the opposition. Rebel disappointment has been intense, and such limited assistance will not [...]
via Lobe Log
by Emile Nakhleh
As President Obama begins his second term and John Kerry becomes the new Secretary of State, they are faced with worrisome uncertainty in Egypt, civil war in Syria, repression in Bahrain, a moribund peace process, and a defiant Iran. In order to help create a stable Middle East [...]
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