In The News

New Statesman: No Serious Strategy for Syria

John Bew April 23, 2018
After seven years of civil war, Syria is in peril. UN peace efforts have flailed, and leaders of Iran, Turkey and Russia have met just before a chemical attack on Ghouta. The three countries do not agree on a role for Syria’s leader Bashar al-Assad, but are “are increasingly alienated from the West, have a substantive military presence on the ground within Syria, want to keep the Saudis and...

AFP: Chemical Inspectors Enter Syria’s Douma

April 17, 2018
A team of investigators with the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons landed in Syria to examine the reported April 7 gas attack near Damascus, but delays block them from entering the neighborhood. The United States, France and Britain had already launched missile strikes on military sites. French President Emmanuel Macron admitted that missile strikes will do little in protecting...

New York Times: Attack in Syria, a World of Potential Risks

Ben Hubbard April 14, 2018
The United States, France and British launched airstrikes outside Damascus with the goal of reducing the Syria’s chemical weapons capacity. The strikes pose a “risk of drawing the United States even more deeply into a conflict in which Russia and Iran… have more invested than ever in keeping President Bashar al-Assad in power.” Russia called for an emergency UN Security Council meeting. Syria...

BBC News: Chemical Attack in Syria

April 9, 2018
More than 40 Syrians including children were reported dead after a chemical weapons attack in Douma, a town once held by Syrian rebels. International investigators cannot enter the area besieged by war. Syria’s brutal regime, supported by Russia, has focused attacks on areas once held by rebels where evacuations of fighters and family members are underway, reports BBC News. Russia offers no...

The New Yorker: Egypt's Farcical Election

Lauren Bohn April 4, 2018
US President Donald Trump has broken with American diplomatic tradition by welcoming with open arms the current Egyptian president Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, a former general with a spotty human rights record. El-Sisi captured 97 percent of the vote in this year’s election, where only one opponent remained in the race long enough for voters to see his name on the ballot. That lone opponent, Mousa...

Huffington Post: $1 Billion Arms Sale to Saudi Arabia

Nick Visser and Nick Robins-Early March 30, 2018
The Trump administration plans to approve a $1 billion dollar arms sale to Saudi Arabia, including “around 6,700 anti-tank missiles and $300 million in parts for the Saudis’ helicopters and tanks,” explains the US State Department. The deal is controversial due to the ongoing Saudi role in Yemen’s civil war. Since March 2015, the Saudi state has carried out lethal airstrike campaigns as part of...

The Economist: Egypt’s Election Offers No Choice

March 27, 2018
Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi will win what the Economist is describing as a sham of an election. Opponent Moussa Mustafa Moussa “has lived up to a promise not to challenge the president,” notes the Economist. The election, March 26 to 28, is Egypt’s ninth national ballot since the 2011 revolution that ousted authoritarian President Hosni Mubarak. The first election in 2012 resulted in...