Team Obama’s on-again, off-again red line on the Syrian regime’s use of chemical weapons against its people and the reported decision to provide some additional military support to rebel forces isn’t only about the use of ghastly nerve agents. It’s bigger than that. Of course, we can assume that President Obama, like so many others, abhors the Syrian government’s use of…
Russia is planning to supply Syria game-changing weapons which will shift the balance of power in the eastern Mediterranean in favor of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime and may make any future operations against the Assad forces considerably more difficult. If Moscow’s missile supply plans go through, the Russian advanced weapons systems would be able to target NATO…
One negative implication of the Obama Administration’s “lead from behind” efforts on the worsening Syria crisis is that U.S. allies have independently stepped forward to advance their own interests by backing various rival groups within the ad hoc Syrian opposition coalition. These external aid efforts, often pursued with little coordination, have bolstered Islamist…
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan visits Washington this week amid escalating and intertwined Middle East crises. Turkey is a key NATO ally that borders Syria, Iran, and Iraq: three major focal points of U.S. Middle East policy. President Obama should consult with Prime Minister Erdogan to coordinate policies on these three fronts and to encourage Turkey to…
President Obama yesterday backpedaled away from taking immediate action on the Syrian chemical warfare issue. Caution on the chemical warfare issue is warranted, and Washington should clearly establish the facts to rule out the possibility that the chemical warfare reports are misinformation or disinformation. But as bad as the reported chemical attacks by Syria’s Bashar…
The White House now believes Syrian strongman Bashar Assad has used the poison gas sarin against his own people. Last August, President Barack Obama called the use of chemical weapons a "red line." He now faces a hard choice: Admit his red line was phony or intervene in a conflict he has sought to avoid. The Syrian crisis is not just about sarin. Assad has killed more…
Brokering an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement - for recent American presidents, it’s been the holy grail of foreign policy. Unfortunately for President Obama, a comprehensive accord is just not in the cards for his second term. It won’t be for lack of trying. But the inconvenient truth is that peace is impossible as long as Hamas retains its stranglehold over Gaza.…
Middle East tensions are rising as President Obama prepares to visit Israel, the West Bank and Jordan. Clearly, Iran will be at the top of the agenda. On Thursday, Mr. Obama announced that Tehran was only about a year away from producing a nuclear bomb. “Obviously, we don’t want to cut it too close,” he noted. Another issue requiring urgent attention: forging a common…
President Obama’s upcoming trip to Israel, the West Bank, and Jordan comes at a tense time in an increasingly turbulent region. High on his agenda will be halting Iran’s nuclear weapons efforts, forging a common policy on containing the destabilizing spillover effects of Syria’s meltdown, and reviving the long-stalled Israeli–Palestinian peace negotiations. The President…
New Secretary of State John Kerry told a German audience last week that in America, “you have the right to be stupid, if you want to be.” Ouch. That’s a pretty harsh thing for a U.S. official to say overseas about his country, but perhaps he was reflecting on Team Obama’s strategy toward the bloodletting in Syria — a conflict that has dragged on for nearly two years,…
Abstract: Russia is pursuing a Middle Eastern policy that is designed to reduce U.S. and Western influence in the Middle East, even at the risk of Islamist terrorism, which is a growing problem in Russia. It views the recent upheavals in the Middle East and North Africa as an American conspiracy to undermine Russia and friendly regimes in the region. Russia’s Soviet…
In the aftermath of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s trip to Turkey last weekend, there has been speculation that the U.S. might support the idea of establishing a no-fly zone (NFZ) over Syria. Under the current conditions, an establishment of an NFZ would be a costly and risky action that would do little to stop the killing on the ground while entangling the U.S. in…
The Interfax news agency reported Tuesday that a Russian naval squadron, including an antisubmarine ship and three marine-landing craft, left Severomorsk in the Arctic for the Mediterranean. Several more ships will join it en route. Together, they will pay a call to Tartus, Syria, Russia's only naval facility outside of the old Soviet Union. Russian officials have…
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s ruthless regime is deservedly threatened by mounting protests organized by long-suffering Syrians fed up with its harsh repression, notorious corruption, and rigid autocratic rule. But the Obama Administration has soft-pedaled its criticism of Assad’s dictatorship, eager to “engage” the stubbornly hostile regime despite its systematic…
Abstract: In 2011 and 2012, a wave of popular uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East shook the region’s autocratic regimes, prompting euphoric reactions in the West about an “Arab Spring” and a supposed new age of democracy. While the overthrow of authoritarian regimes can give democracy a chance to bloom, it has also created opportunities for a wide spectrum of…
Throughout the 20-month Syrian bloodbath, Team Obama has been telling us that they’ve been playing it low-key because they feared the crisis might spread beyond Syrian borders if we took a bigger role. Sigh. Even with a US-supported, Arab League-sponsored Syrian opposition meeting in Qatar this week, the lack of a hard-hitting US reaction to the slaughter (now…
There is a popular notion that the world has changed dramatically with the election of a new American President and that the United States will not be challenged by ambitious peer competitors in the coming decades. While this is a hopeful concept, it is also inaccurate. The world remains a dangerous place, populated with countries that will compete with the United…
Secretary of State John Kerry has embarked on his first official trip abroad, traveling to the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar. Although NATO and European issues have been featured prominently in Kerry’s early stops, much of his agenda will focus on containing the destabilizing spillover effects of…
American policy toward the Syrian uprising has been an unmitigated failure. President Obama’s glacially slow and overly cautious policies that were intended to avoid turning the Syrian uprising into a wider regional affair have had exactly the opposite effect. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s call for new leadership in the anti-Assad resistance is likely to amount to…
The Obama Administration has failed to provide clear leadership regarding the deteriorating situation in Syria. It naively sought to engage with Bashar Assad’s dictatorship before protests erupted last spring. But this myopic engagement policy failed to yield positive results, just as it failed with Iran, Assad’s chief ally. Now the Administration is reduced to pleading…
The leaders of the G8 have wrapped up a two-day summit. Although tax, transparency, and trade (the so-called three Ts)...…
The White House announced yesterday that President Obama has authorized the transfer of arms to Syria’s rebels after...…
The Obama Administration has been moving very slowly on the Syrian chemical weapons issue. Caution is in order, because...…
Senior Obama Administration officials held a background briefing on Friday in which they discussed the “alarming...…
The Lebanese Shia Islamist militant group Hezbollah is becoming more aggressively involved in Syria’s civil war, which...…
I sat down with James Phillips, Heritage's Senior Research Fellow for Middle Eastern Affairs, to get his take on the...…
On Wednesday the United Nations General Assembly voted on a resolution condemning the Syrian government’s forces while...…
Cuts in President Obama’s fiscal year 2014 defense budget submission are troubling, according to Mike Rogers (R–AL),...…
Hezbollah, a Lebanon-based Shia terrorist organization, engages in numerous illicit activities around the world,...…
Even as the U.S. withdraws from Iraq and Afghanistan, the world has certainly not become a safer place. North Korea...…
Senior Research Fellow for Middle Eastern Affairs