Obama’s Former Middle East Adviser: We Should Have Bombed Assad

A couple of weeks ago, I was talking with Philip Gordon, who held the Middle East portfolio at the National Security Council from 2013 to 2015 (and before that, served as assistant secretary of state for European affairs) about my Atlantic article, “The Obama Doctrine.” The piece tried to explain how the president understands the […]

The Assad Files: Possible evidence for war crimes

The investigator in Syria had made the drive perhaps a hundred times, always in the same battered truck, never with any cargo. It was forty miles to the border, through eleven rebel checkpoints, where the soldiers had come to think of him as a local, a lawyer whose wartime misfortunes included a commute on their […]

Syria talks to test if Assad can negotiate in good faith

Upcoming peace talks on a political transition in Syria will test whether Syrian President Bashar al-Assad can negotiate in good faith, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Tuesday before a new round of negotiations in Geneva. Assad has said he thinks the Geneva talks can produce a new Syrian government that includes opposition, […]

Assad’s master plan is working — and now he’s entrenching himself even deeper

As regime forces continue to beat back ISIS in Syria, the country’s embattled president is using the gains to his advantage to convince the West that he’s a viable partner in the fight against terrorism. Forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad retook the ancient city of Palmyra last month, and have since driven ISIS fighters out […]

Syria: An Unpopular Solution

Face it, whatever decision is made by U.S. Congress concerning action to be or not to be taken in Syria, it will not be embraced whole heartedly by the American public. Obviously no decision like this one has ever been fully embraced–not even the invasion of Afghanistan after the attacks of 9/11. Really, I recall […]

Syrian Roulette: Before the Bombs Fall…

Every day I see that the stage on which we each play our roles is changing the repertoire. I mean comedies are fine but this is starting to turn into a tragicomedy… and a very poor one for that matter. When we speak of this comedy it instantly reminds me of a quote from a […]