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Atlantic Council blogs provide short-form analyses from Council experts and a wider community of global voices on the world’s most important news stories.
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SyriaSource

Apr 5, 2017

No Guns, No Justice: The Geopolitics of Law and the Culture of Impunity in the Levant

By Anthony Elghossain

Yesterday, the Assad regime rained chemicals down from the skies—killing scores of civilians, including children, as it has been doing daily since it triggered Syria’s struggle by killing peaceful protestors in 2011. In six years of war, the Assad regime has committed countless atrocities: it has massacred civilians in Daraya, gassed Ghouta, set up a […]

Syria

IranSource

Apr 5, 2017

Iran Must Stop Assad Gas Attacks in Syria

By Barbara Slavin

Iranians know better than most the horrors of chemical warfare.

UkraineAlert

Apr 5, 2017

The Coming Crackdown on Ukraine’s Anticorruption Crusaders

By Daria Kaleniuk

President Petro Poroshenko’s new restrictions on anticorruption groups are appalling and threaten to reverse much of the progress Ukraine has made since the Euromaidan. Some analysts who defend the new law have got the details all wrong. Others have sounded the alarm, but the fine points of the regulations remain murky. On March 27, Poroshenko […]

Ukraine
https://www.flickr.com/photos/39955793@N07/9625468262/in/photolist-7Zj35K-7TyG1u-acg3Xz-9G5cHU-bbJzcK-y4Wzmj-9dCoDB-bEig3X-fEz3nm-8Bx1kS-7xEepE-7xGZuJ-7YzKPx-7xxeF6-7xB4n5-7xB4k3-a89HtA-7xApTx-7xApRi-6AvoDF-baeQQr-7xwzGz-89iS3C-baJWM4-jpTSz6-xNjykk-8186dW-8S8XVG-fJAcMX-83qdkp-8sApmN-8sQXMg-8sAp7f-9RzkUR-8sU1hG

NATOSource

Apr 4, 2017

Lithuania Says Russia has Ability to Launch Baltic Attack in 24 Hours

By Andrius Sytas, Reuters

Russia has developed the capability to launch an attack on the Baltic states with as little as 24 hours’ notice

Intelligence NATO

New Atlanticist

Apr 4, 2017

Arab Leaders Try to Get Trump’s Attention

By Shehab al-Makahleh

Eager to unlock the door to US-Arab cooperation on tackling regional issues following decades of disappointment with Washington’s lack of understanding of their concerns, three Arab leaders are engaging US President Donald Trump’s new administration over the next month. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi met Trump at the White House on April 3; Jordan’s King […]

Israel Middle East

MENASource

Apr 4, 2017

Winning Yemen, but at What Price?

By Tarek Radwan

The Hudayda (also spelled Hodeida) port receives about 70 percent of all imports and humanitarian assistance shipments to the poorest country in the Middle East, wracked by decades of on-and-off conflict and standing at the precipice of famine thanks to the most recent conflict between the rebels and those backing President Abdrabbo Mansour Hadi, including the […]

Yemen

MENASource

Apr 4, 2017

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Transform into an Expeditionary Force

By Ali Alfoneh

The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) intervention in Syria’s war changed the outcome of the war and has, at least in the short term, secured the Assad regime in the face of a popular revolution and armed rebellion. The war is also changing the IRGC. Previously tasked with protecting Iran from a foreign invasion and […]

Iran Syria
https://www.nsa.gov/about/leadership/bio-rledgett.shtml

NATOSource

Apr 4, 2017

It Took ‘Hand to Hand’ Cyber Combat for NSA to Remove Russian Hackers From State Department Networks

By Ellen Nakashima, Washington Post

Over a 24-hour period, top U.S. cyber defenders engaged in a pitched battle with Russian hackers who had breached the unclassified State Department computer system

Cybersecurity Intelligence

New Atlanticist

Apr 3, 2017

US Needs ‘Strategic and Moral Clarity’ for Russia Reset

By Jack Gloss

The presence of “strategic and moral clarity” in Washington is essential before a reset in the US-Russia relationship can be attempted, John E. Herbst, director of the Atlantic Council’s Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center and a former US ambassador to Ukraine, said in Washington on March 28. US President Donald J. Trump has expressed a desire […]

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NATOSource

Apr 3, 2017

Is Trump Actually Good for NATO?

By Barbara Plett Usher, BBC

Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told me last week that his job has in some ways been made easier by US President Donald Trump.

NATO Security & Defense