Arab World

People have been asking why President Obama did not go to Congress about Libya but is willing to do so with regard to a much less robust action in Syria. The answer is a pragmatic and not a legal or constitutional one. Obama did not need Congress in the case of Libya. He had the […]

Caretaker Czech Prime minister Jiri Rusnok and president Milos Zeman have denounced President Obama’s plans to bomb Syria not just as unwise but as actually illegal. In the United Nations Charter, which the US crafted and to which it is a signatory, there are only two grounds for going to war: self-defense and a UN […]

The heavy propaganda for an Iraq War waged by the Bush administration and the Blair government in 2002-2003 came back to haunt the Anglo-American alliance on Thursday when the British parliament voted 285 to 272 not to authorize a military strike on Syria. While the government of Prime Minister David Cameron could theoretically have proceeded […]

Anthony Dworkin, Daniel Levy and Julien Barnes-Dacey write for the European Council on Foreign Relations: 1. What are the goals of intervention? All statements coming from the western leaders most likely to undertake military action (US, UK and France) suggest a narrow focus on chemical weapons (CW), rather than action designed to sway the overall […]

What is known is that during heavy bombardment of Ghouta in Rif Dimashq on August 21, rockets were fired that did not explode and instead released gases that killed several hundred people, most of them non-combatants, and injured hundreds of others. US intelligence agencies released an intercept on Wednesday showing that after the attack, a […]