The “U.S. Government Assessment of the Syrian Government’s Use of Chemical Weapons,” just released today, makes a convincing case that the Assad regime is responsible for the attack that it estimates killed 1,429 people, including 429 children. Multiple streams...
At the New York Times, Mark Landler, David Sanger, and Thom Shanker write of President Obama’s decision to strike Syria even though the British Parliament refused to allow Prime Minister Cameron to follow through on his pledge of support. The decision to proceed...
By the time you read this, we may already be at war. Syrian forces loyal to Bashar al-Assad now stand accused of deploying chemical weapons against Syrian civilians in a Damascus suburb. Though they have long clamored for U.S. intervention in the conflict,...
I’ve always thought that Bashar Al-Assad often has an uncomfortable look on his face, as if he never envisioned he would be Syria’s president, and never quite got accustomed to the idea. This make sense, inasmuch as he only seemed destined for the role after his elder...
As Iraq and Afghanistan fade from memory, North Korea has entered the U.S. imagination as the latest threat to national security. Alongside hysterical warnings of impending attack, many foreign policy analysts argue that events on the peninsula reflect an emergent...
Cross-posted from the Colorado Progressive Jewish News. “Now we sit and wait while the Washington regime makes its next lethal move. Let us lift our voices in unison to prevent it.” “Before another rush to judgment and ‘punishment’ based on a presumption of guilt, as...
On Monday at Focal Points, I wrote about Syrian President Bashar al-Assad invoking logic to refute the charges that his government carried out chemical-weapon attacks. He pointed out in an interview with Izvestia reported on by the New York Times that … government...
The threat of a reckless, dangerous, and illegal US or US-led assault on Syria is looking closer than ever. The US government has been divided over the Syria crisis since it began. Some, especially in the Pentagon and some of the intelligence agencies, said direct...
Some of us have wondered why Syrian President Bashar al-Assad would drop tear gas in the suburbs of the seat of his government and his own home, Damascus. After all, the wind could blow the gas into his backyard. Nor did it make sense in light of how calls for...
After Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s historic and heroic 1967 “Beyond Vietnam” speech against the U.S. war in Southeast Asia, he received a barrage of criticism from editorial boards, donors, and even other civil rights leaders. Ralph Bunche (who in 1950 became the...