Epstein Secrets

d others are pinching Mr. Assad's cronies. But they are not enough. A United Nations arms embargo — Russia and Iran are both still selling arms to Damascus — and the toughest possible comprehensive economic sanctions are long overdue. So are formal charges against Mr. Assad and his lieutenants for crim

ans supporting the regime against opposition troops. The response to this concern, however, is not to oppose intervention in Syria but to support a U.N. Security Council resolution with clear parameters about a limited use of force. Such a resolution, which would have to follow a request by the Arab League, should

uch less fulfilled, notwithstanding administration pronouncements that the eleven-country "Geneva process" will effect a governmental transition in Damascus. The Atlantic Council's Fred Hof has posed asuestion that many Syrians are surely asking as well: has the US made Bashar al-Assad "an irreplaceabl

decision not to act on Syria and the United Nations Security Council's decision to pass a weak resolution on Syria the last straws? It was based on U.N. Security Council decisions, especially the one on the issue of [Syrian] chemical weapons removal. The fact that it had no enforcement powers? Not only that — the f

hoped. How do you like it? • In Syria, a populist revolt against a dictator threatens to become a civil war as Russia and Iran back their client in Damascus and the West defaults to a useless United Nations. The conflict threatens to spill into neighboring countries. • Iran continues its march toward a

uiring nuclear weapons can rarely be dissuaded. Take North Korea, which succeeded in building its weapons despite countless rounds of sanctions and U.N. Security Council resolutions. If EFTA00671817 Tehran decides that its security depends on possessing nuclear weapons, sanctions are unlikely to change its mind.

ents might be interpreted. But that could change. Now, six years later, with its own popularity in Gaza at a low-water mark and its former ally in Damascus on the ropes, Hamas may decide to encourage those diplomats who are determined to be encouraged. That wouldn't take much of an ideological shift on

e course of events in the Arab world, Beijing's stance shifted from resistance to foreign intervention to a surprising abstention on the March 2011 U.N. Security Council vote on Resolution 1973, which aimed to halt the Gadhafi regime's onslaught on rebel groups in Libya. Then in February 2012 E FTA_R1_02204199 EFT