Middle East

NATO Secretary General Welcomes US/Russia Agreement on Syria’s Chemical Arsenal

By Anders Fogh Rasmussen, NATO

Statement by the NATO Secretary General on the framework for elimination of Syrian chemical weapons.

Diplomacy to the Rescue in Syria?

By R. Nicholas Burns

A huge collective sigh of relief from the White House, Congress, and Bashar Assad’s palace in Damascus was heard round the world earlier this week when the Russians came to the rescue. The unlikely savior — the cynical and calculating Vladimir Putin — seized the moment in the Syria quagmire by offering a lifeline of […]

Initial Reaction to the Geneva Joint Statement

Secretary of State John Kerry, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, and UN Special Representative Lakhdar just emerged from their discussion about a potential Geneva 2 peace conference to make brief, individual statements. Questions were not taken. According to Kerry, if progress can be made on the chemical issue he and Lavrov would likely meet in […]

Advice to President Obama on Syria

By Fred Hof

At a recent conference I was given the following question to answer: “What advice would you give President Barack Obama and his military advisers as they consider military and diplomatic action with regard to Syria?”  Here, for better or worse, is how I responded:

Echoes of 2011: Media Freedom in Egypt

With former president Mohamed Morsi’s ouster on July 3, Egyptians who took to the streets have bristled at the description of the events as a military coup. They argue that millions called for Morsi’s removal, so it should be described as a popular revolution. The definition of July 3, however, cannot be limited to one […]

President Obama’s Syria Confusion

By Rajan Menon

President Barack Obama’s Tuesday evening speech explaining his plans for a military strike against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, though deftly delivered, will not put to rest the doubts that a large majority of Americans have about what the president aims to achieve with what he insisted would be a limited, targeted operation.