Today’s news on Syria in 5 depressing lines
Kofi Annan is quitting as Syria envoy, effective August 31. Needless to say, most of us had thought he quit sooner. President Obama signed a secret “finding,” authorizing covert support for Syria’s...
View ArticleSyria: When strategic opportunity comes knocking
We’ll have to wait to see whether the Iranians captured by Syrian rebel forces are indeed Shi’ite pilgrims as the government of Iran claims or whether they are instead, as the rebels assert, Iranian...
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Banter #66: Paul Wolfowitz on Syria
This week on Banter, we sit down with AEI Scholar Paul Wolfowitz for an update on what’s going on in Syria. Paul has written and spoken extensively on the issue and brings a ton of knowledge and...
View ArticleObama, not yet a pacifist. Not yet.
Many have suggested that President Obama’s opposition to any decisive action on Syria – be it arming the rebels, supporting safe zones, supporting the creation of a government in exile – is political....
View ArticleThe larger lesson of Libya
An article in Monday’s New York Times reports in painful detail how “most of the arms shipped at the behest of Saudi Arabia and Qatar to supply Syrian rebel groups fighting the government of Bashar...
View ArticleForget the gossip: Focus on Benghazi
Members of Congress of both parties are clamoring for former CIA Director David Petraeus to testify about the decisions and events surrounding the murder of the US ambassador to Libya and three other...
View ArticleReaping what we sow: A Middle East afire
Be not deceived; God is not mocked: For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. I’m usually not big for quoting the Bible, let alone using it as a political guide. But these words of wisdom...
View ArticleIran diverts IRGC Ground Force commanders to Syria in an effort to prop up...
By now, anyone who cares knows that Iran is supporting Bashar al-Assad’s military in Syria. But just how much is Iran devoting to keeping Assad afloat? AEI’s Critical Threats team has uncovered...
View ArticleChemical attack in Syria? Whatever
Yesterday evening, Josh Rogin over at FP’s The Cable dropped a bombshell of a story: The Assad government, US government investigators have concluded, likely used chemical weapons in Homs on December...
View ArticleIs Assad calling Obama’s bluff?
On Tuesday, Josh Rogin of Foreign Policy’s “The Cable” published a story on a possible chemical weapons attack by Syrian government forces against Syrian rebels two days before Christmas. Rogin’s story...
View ArticleUnderstanding Iran’s political system
The specter of Iranian belligerence behooves a closer examination of the country’s opaque political leadership. In a new paper, AEI Resident Fellow Michael Rubin investigates some of the most salient...
View ArticleThe top 10 ObamaLeaks John Brennan needs to explain
When John Brennan appears for his confirmation hearing as the next CIA director tomorrow, he needs to explain to the Senate these ten major leaks of classified national security information from the...
View ArticleObama and arming the Syrian rebels
Yesterday, both the chairman of the Joint Chiefs and outgoing SecDef Panetta told the Senate Armed Services Committee that they supported arming the rebels in Syria. We also know that Hillary Clinton...
View ArticleThe assassination of Iranian Quds Force General Hassan Shateri in Syria
Brigadier General Hassan Shateri, a member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Quds Force (IRGC-QF), was assassinated in Syria on February 13, 2013. It appears that he had been in Aleppo,...
View ArticleIslamic militants from Russia flock to Syria?
A Russian think tank estimates that several hundred Russian-speaking Salafists have joined the anti-Assad rebellion in Syria. It’s difficult to say whether this figure is accurate. Moreover, in...
View ArticleObama’s Middle East trip: Why?
President Obama heads for the Middle East this week. Why is he going? What is he seeking to achieve? Good questions. I just got back from Israel, and they were asking the same thing. Indeed, here’s a...
View ArticleState Department still silent on Venezuelan ties to Hezbollah
Yesterday, I had the opportunity to testify before the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Non-proliferation, and Trade. I was impressed by the intense interest of...
View ArticleSlam dunks, Syria, and the lessons of Iraq
When President Obama first drew the “red line” last summer on Syrian dictator Bashar Assad’s possible use of chemical weapons and then again last December, he almost certainly believed that this was a...
View ArticleObama on Syria: Something, something, chain of custody, nothing
Barack Obama gave a quickie presser this morning that covered a wide range of issues including Syria, GTMO, Benghazi, and gun control. But the Syria story led the questioning, and the president did...
View ArticleIranian strategy in Syria
The Islamic Republic of Iran has conducted an extensive, expensive, and integrated effort to keep President Bashar al-Assad in power as long as possible while setting conditions to retain its ability...
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