Epstein Secrets

to this week's Syria peace talks in Montreux, Switzerland, does little if anything to change the Assad regime's approach to those talks. President Bashar al- Assad's statements in recent days indicate that he and his backers are attempting to pressure the United States and the rest of the "London 11"

Syria Peace Conference Editorial Article 2. NYT WikiLeaks, Drought and Syria Thomas L. Friedman Article 3. The Washington Institute Avoiding Assad's Forced Solution to the Syria Crisis Andrew J. Tabler Article 4. Now Lebanon Does the US seek an Arab-Iranian "equilibrium?" Hussein Ibish Art

sitional administration by "mutual consent" of the Assad government and the opposition. In the view of the United States, this means that President Bashar al-Assad would be replaced, although Assad government officials and his Alawite sect could be part of the new structure. Iran has refused to accept any pre

nd the destruction of an Iranian civilian airliner and its passengers in 1988. Iranians called the US the Great Satan. The US named Iran as part of the Axis of Evil. For most of these decades, even a EFTA00651266 handshake between officials was taboo and an Iranian who advocated improving the relationship cou

Another Syria Peace Conference Editorial I NYT WikiLeaks, Drought and Syria Thomas L. Friedman Article 3. The Washington Institute Avoiding Assad's Forced Solution to the Syria Crisis Andrew J. Tabler Article 4. Now Lebanon Does the US seek an Arab-Iranian "equilibrium?" Hussein Ibish Ar

to this week's Syria peace talks in Montreux, Switzerland, does little if anything to change the Assad regime's approach to those talks. President Bashar al-Assad's statements in recent days indicate that he and his backers are attempting to pressure the United States and the rest of the "London 11" countries s

ld act as a multiplier on social and economic pressures already at play and undermine stability." ■ "Yehia does not believe that the [government of Bashar al- Assad] will allow any Syrian citizen to starve. ... However, Yehia told us that the Syrian minister of agriculture ... stated publicly that eco

d the destruction of an Iranian civilian airliner and its passengers in 1988. Iranians called the US the Great Satan. The US named Iran as part of the Axis of Evil. For most of these decades, even a handshake between officials was taboo and an Iranian who advocated improving the relationship could find himself

will be loud, criticizing Israel and the U.S. and trying to broker Palestinian reconciliation, but its impact will be small. Whatever the fate of Bashar Assad, Syria's capacity to project power on the regional stage has been dramatically reduced. The Assads -- father and son -- always played a weak hand w

egional stage has been dramatically reduced. The Assads -- father and son -- always played a weak hand we

an could not accomplish after fighting him for eight years. The fact that the Bush administration openly listed Iran as one of the three members of the Axis of Evil and otherwise indicated that it could be subject to military attacks alarmed Tehran. (Similar developments led Qaddafi to give up his program of W

monitors of committing massive atrocities against its civilian population. The Obama administration, backed by Western alies, accuses the regime of Bashar al-Assad of launching a large-scale chemical weapons attack on August 21 that mocked Obama's "red line" rhetoric and finally elicited a White House threat o

e its relevance in an age of WMD. On Syria, the president will likely cite the thorough UN inspectors report as providing indisputable evidence of Assad's use of chemical weapons (CW). Echoing the marker laid down by Secretary of State John Kerry, he will demand that the UNSC pass a robust resoluti

ere is no time like the present for a reformist to meet and greet the Great Satan. Likewise, a face-to-face meeting with a card-carrying member of the Axis of Evil could be a Nixonian moment for President Barack Obama. Groundbreaking political discourse and a thawing of relations might be the first step toward