When the United States says "jump," Syria says....
So the big Middle East news this AM is that the Obama administration has explicitly called for Syrian leader Bashir Assad to leave power. The White House blog has the full text of Obama's statement....
View ArticleStupidest. Sanctions. Ever.
The nasty piece of work that is the Syrian regime has been amping up the repression of its own population as well as its overseas diaspora. What can be done about it? Well, this is a purely...
View ArticleThe new equation for overthrowing resource-rich dictators
The Washington Post's Liz Sly has been doing some excellent reporting on the ground in Syria, and her latest report suggests that the latest batch of sanctions are starting to hurt Syria badly: The...
View ArticleThe Great and All Powerful United States
Yesterday I appeared on TVO's The Agenda with Steve Paikin to discuss Niall Ferguson's latest book, which argues that the West in general and the United States in particular is losing its mojo. The...
View ArticleWrite Sergei Lavrov's outgoing voicemail message!
As both the unrest and crackdown in Syria continue to get worse, Russia has steadfastly stood by the side of the Assad regime. Matters are coming to a head in Turtle Bay, however, as James Blitz and...
View ArticleI don't think Bashar Assad can see his shadow
The AP breathlessly reports that Punxatawney Phil saw his shadow today, which means another six weeks of winter. Based on recent data, I'm wondering if Syria's Bashar al-Assad can say the same thing....
View ArticleWhen the nastiest option is also the least terrible option
The New Republic has assembled a symposium on what the United States should do about Syria. Among others, contributors will include Larry Diamond, Anne-Marie Slaughter, and... er... me: The New...
View ArticleDear realists: please explain Russia
In my experience, American realists just love the heck out of Russia. Go scan The National Interest and inevitably you'll see the most charitable of interpretations about Russian behavior. As near...
View ArticleThe limits of compellence in Syria
As events in Syria unravel, there is a growing concern that Syrian despot Bashar Assad will use his chemical weapons arsenal to punish those rising up against him in a desperate bid to stay in power....
View ArticleThe Syria policy that dare not speak its name
Your humble blogger is on vacation at an undisclosed location, so blogging will provoke some nasty looks from my family be a bit lighter for the next ten days or so. So, alas, I will miss a couple of...
View ArticleIntroducing the Drezner Intelligence Explainer
David Sanger and Eric Schmitt have a story in today's New York Times about... well, as near as I can figure, the purpose of the story is that the intelligence comnunity wants to communicate with the...
View ArticleTop ten signs that your authoritarian regime is in trouble
Ellen Barry reports in the New York Times that the Russians see the handwriting on the wall in Syria: Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov, Russia's top envoy for Syria, said on Thursday that...
View ArticleObama's revealed foreign policy preferences
The New Republic has relaunched in style, featuring a spiffy new website and a sitdown interview with President Barack Obama. Alas, much of the interview was about internal GOP politics. Only the...
View ArticleHow Syria didn't ruin the Arab Spring
Your humble blogger has been traveling a lot, so it was only this a.m. that I got around to reading Marc Lynch's blog post on "How Syria Ruined the Arab Spring." It's pretty gripping stuff: [T]he...
View ArticleHow to lose a foreign-policy debate that you could win
As someone who is pretty friggin' wary about the use of American force in Syria, and as someone who does not shy away from snark in the blogosphere, I found Steve Walt's top ten warning signs of...
View ArticleWhy Obama is arming Syria's rebels: it's the realism, stupid.
Red line!! RED LINE!!! RED LINE!!!!: The Obama administration, concluding that the troops of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria have used chemical weapons against rebel forces in his country’s civil...
View ArticleA gruesome test of realpolitik in Syria
With FP's David Kenner reporting that the Assad regime used chemical weapons against its own civilian population, we're already seeing a debate about what to do now. Over at Duck of Minerva, Dan...
View ArticleWhen twerking "crowds out" the Syria debate....
As the United States starts signaling that hostile action will likely be taken towards the Syrian government, I've seen a few laments today that not enough attention is being paid to that fact....
View ArticleWhy Obama needs to choose whether he's a liberal or a realist on Syria
As BuzzFeed's Miriam Elder has chronicled, the foreign policy community ain't too happy with Obama right now. Your humble blogger hasn't been quite as unhappy, but that's mostly because I've been...
View ArticleInternational lawyers give it the old college try
So Oona Hathaway and Scott Shapiro -- professors of international law at Yale University -- have an op-ed in today's New York Times in which they say... pretty much what you'd expect professors of...
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