Lebanon’s unraveling and the undiminished influence of the Syrian state clearly demonstrate that U.S. attempts to isolate Damascus have failed.
The Case for Syria
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Syria
Arab Democracy Now!
The campaign against dictatorship in the Arab world has brought together some strange bedfellows. The Bush administration’s neoconservatives darkly dreamed of democracy promotion in the Middle East before the Iraq and Afghanistan quagmires became the stuff of nightmares. Sharing the same bed, but dreaming different dreams, have been the Muslim Brotherhood and its fellow Islamists who have long railed against the injustices of authoritarian regimes in locales such as Egypt, Syria, and the Gulf States. And now, of course, the predominantly young protestors of Tunisia have turned dream into reality by ousting their dictator Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali after 23 years at the helm.
Iran-Turkey-Syria: An Alliance of Convenience
The Israel-Palestine conflict has been at the heart of regional affairs since the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. This is the context wherein the “de facto” Iran-Turkey-Syria axis should be understood, although substantive normalization of relations in the last decade between Turkey and its neighbors Iran and Syria served as a pre-requisite for the supposed alliance.
Middle East: What’s Hot — North, What’s Not — South
Egypt and Saudi Arabia, the United States’ old allies in the Mid-East’s southern are likely to wield less influence in the future than the northern tier, which includes Turkey, Iran, and Syria.
Postcard From…Damascus
On the Brink of Peace in the Middle East?
Over the past half decade a broad consensus has emerged among informed observers in the Middle East that recent U.S. policies in the region – from Iraq and Iran to our approach to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Syria, Hamas, and Hezbollah – have been ill-conceived and executed, and have damaged both America’s standing in the region and prospects for peace and stability in the area. Yet a series of local initiatives this year suggests that an important restructuring of relationships across the region might lead to some resolution to a number of the region’s thorniest problems.
A Cluster of Fallacies
Well over half the world’s governments agreed last week to “consign cluster munitions to the trash bin of history,” in the words of the Cluster Munition Coalition, the civil society collective that delivered the treaty. Meeting in Dublin, Ireland, representatives of 110 governments completed negotiations on a new international treaty that bans the production, use, and export of all existing cluster munitions and commits them to destroy their stockpiles within eight years.
Hardliners Target Dtente with North Korea
The Bush administration’s approach to North Korea was once quite consistent with its overall foreign policy. There was name-calling, a preference for regime change, and an emphasis on military solutions. Not surprisingly, then, the relationship between the United States and North Korea, like so many other tense stand-offs, deteriorated over the last seven years. The United States accused the third member of the “axis of evil” of money-laundering, missile sales, and a secret program for the production of nuclear material. For its part, North Korea responded tit for tat at the rhetorical level. And, in October 2006, it upped the ante by exploding a nuclear device. If the United States were not tied up in other military conflicts, and eyeing Iran to boot, a war in Northeast Asia might have been higher on the administration’s to-do list.
John Edwards’ Foreign Policy
A sizable number of progressive activists, celebrities and unions who, for various reasons, are unwilling to support the underfunded long-shot bid of Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich are backing the presidential campaign of former North Carolina Senator John Edwards as their favorite among the top-tier candidates for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. Indeed, the charismatic populist has staked out positions on important domestic policy issues, particularly addressing economic justice, that are more progressive than any serious contender for the nomination of either party in many years.
Hillary Clinton on Military Policy
While much attention has been given to Senator Hillary Clinton’s support for the U.S. invasion of Iraq, her foreign policy record regarding other international conflicts and her apparent eagerness to accept the use of force appears to indicate that her fateful vote authorizing the invasion and her subsequent support for the occupation and counter-insurgency war was no aberration. Indeed, there’s every indication that, as president, her foreign policy agenda would closely parallel that of the Bush administration. Despite efforts by some conservative Republicans to portray her as being on the left wing of the Democratic Party, in reality her foreign policy positions bear a far closer resemblance to those of Ronald Reagan than they do of George McGovern.