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Ambrose Bierce is said to be the author of the saying “War is God’s way of teaching Americans geography.” Despite the vigorous national debate about intervening in Syria, there is some reason to think that most Americans could not find it on a map. Here are some key points about Syria that this blog has […]

Syria

President Obama’s Doubtful Grounds for Military Action against Syria

Juan Cole

In his speech to the nation on Tuesday evening, President Obama laid out his case for military action against Syria, even as he hit the ‘pause’ button to allow for further diplomacy in light of the Russian proposal to sequester Syria’s chemical weapons. I don’t disagree that units of the Syrian military deployed chemical weapons […]

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How Putin Saved Obama, Congress and the European Union from Further Embarrassing themselves on Syria

Juan Cole

Secretary of State John Kerry was asked at a press conference in London Monday morning if there was anything that could forestall a US missile attack on Damascus, and he replied off the cuff that Syria could surrender its chemical weapons stockpile to the international community within a week. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian […]

Syria

Congress Could now Alter our Militarized approach to the Middle East– But likely Won’t (Bacevich)

Juan Cole

Andrew J. Bacevich writes at Tomdispatch Sometimes history happens at the moment when no one is looking. On weekends in late August, the president of the United States ought to be playing golf or loafing at Camp David, not making headlines. Yet Barack Obama chose Labor Day weekend to unveil arguably the most consequential foreign […]

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Obama Isolated at G20 on Syria, No ‘Coalition of the Willing’

Juan Cole

President Obama found himself isolated on the Syria issue at the G20 conference in St. Petersburg on Thursday. Among the world’s largest 20 economies, only France agreed with his plan for a military attack on Damascus. China expressed fears that US military action in Syria would cause a spike in oil prices and slow the […]

Syria

A US attack on Syria will Prolong the War

Juan Cole

The struggle in Syria began peacefully in spring of 2011, but after about half a year it turned violent when the regime deployed tanks and other heavy munitions against the protesters. Some of the latter took up weapons and turned to violence in revenge. Thereafter the struggle spiraled into a civil war, in which the […]

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Syria: The US is no Lone Ranger (Cole @ Truthdig)

Juan Cole

My essay, “The US is no Lone Ranger,” on Syria, is out at Truthdig Excerpt: “The odd discourse in Washington around President Barack Obama’s determination to bomb Syria over the country’s use of chemical weapons assumes a moral superiority on the part of the United States and its allies on this issue that can only […]

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The US still Wants to be the Sole Superpower; but it Can’t (Engelhardt)

Juan Cole

Tom Engelhardt writes at Tomdispatch.com In an increasingly phantasmagorical world, here’s my present fantasy of choice: someone from General Keith Alexander’s outfit, the National Security Agency, tracks down H.G. Wells’s time machine in the attic of an old house in London. Britain’s subservient Government Communications Headquarters, its version of the NSA, is paid off and […]

Iran

Former Iranian President Slams Syria for Gassing own People: Sign of deep Divisions in Tehran

Juan Cole

Former Iranian president Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani has roiled Iranian politics by admitting that the Syrian government gassed its own people at Ghuta in the eastern suburbs of Damascus. He was lamenting the calamities that are befalling the hapless Syrian people. He attacked the regime of President Bashar al-Assad for filling what he called “football stadiums” full […]