In The News

BBC News: G7 Seeks United Front on Assad, Russia and Syria War

April 10, 2017
G7 leaders want to unite around a strategy for ending civil war in Syria while convincing Russia to abandon support for President Bashar al-Assad. “Allies will also be seeking clarity from the US on its Syria policy, after some apparently mixed messages,” notes a BBC report. US officials continue to offer divided assessments on Assad’s future, even after air strikes on an air base in retaliation...

Washington Post: Trump and “America First” Philosophy

Greg Jaffe April 6, 2017
Citizens around the world expect to international leaders to speak out against wartime atrocities and offer policies that promote moral values including justice and concern for human rights. “President Trump has vowed to follow a radically new approach to foreign policy that jettisons the costly mantle of moral leadership in favor of America’s most immediate economic and security interests,”...

The New York Times: Worst Chemical Attack in Years in Syria; US Blames Assad

Anne Barnard and Michael R. Gordon April 5, 2017
A few days after the United States announced that it would not seek removal of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, a chemical weapon attack was launched against a rebel stronghold in Idlib Province, killing dozens and injuring more than 250. A nerve agent is suspected with images of people shaking or paralyzed, gasping for air, transmitted by global media. “A senior State Department official said the attack...

The Washington Post: Syria Fires Missiles at Israeli Warplanes on Bombing Run

William Booth March 17, 2017
For the most part Israel has been restrained about intervening in the Syrian civil war since 2011, other than attacking weapon transports to Hezbollah, a political party and militant group that along with Iran and Russia has sided with the Syrian government. “In a rare communique, in which Israel took responsibility for the usually clandestine airstrikes, the Israeli Air Force confirmed that its...

The Economist: As America and Russia Talk, Ukraine Fights

February 4, 2017
Conflict in eastern Ukraine was frozen for two years but has “flared up with renewed force” soon after Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, presidents of the United States and Russia, spoke by telephone, reports the Economist. “Following the flare-up, the American ambassador to the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, which monitors the ceasefire, blamed ‘combined Russian-separatist...

To Confront North Korea, Talk First and Get Tough Later

William J. Perry January 9, 2017
North Korea borders China, South Korea and Russia, respectively the world’s second, eleventh and twelfth largest economies, and the nation is a few hundred miles away from Japan, third largest economy. North Korea’s nuclear program and erratic leadership could trigger war and economic crisis. The nation is signaling that its intercontinental ballistic missile program is a priority, explains...

The Hopes for Peace and Palestinian Statehood Fade Away

January 6, 2017
Conflicts that linger for decades are costly in many ways and threaten security and reduce trust for all concerned. The Economist reports on the speech by US Secretary of State John Kerry on the ongoing failure to end the “stubborn struggle” between Israel and Palestine. Kerry described the Netanyahu administration as “the most right-wing in Israeli history” and questioned how a hardline agenda...