From the category archives:

Syria

American hypocrisy on weapons in the Middle East

March 2, 2010

Haaretz reports:
The U.S. administration has asked Syrian President Bashar Assad to immediately stop transferring arms to Hezbollah. American officials made the request during a meeting Friday with the Syrian ambassador to Washington.
Al-Hayat reports Hillary Clinton sent a message to Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri on the need to curtail arms smuggling to Hezbollah. “Not a [...]

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US can’t get no satisfaction from Syria and Iran

February 27, 2010

At his blog, Syria Comment, Joshua Landis writes:
President Bashar al-Assad and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was in Damascus today, threw down the gauntlet. Only the day before Hilary Clinton warned Syria “to begin to move away from the relationship with Iran,” and stop supporting Hizbullah, Hamas, and ex-Baathists in Iraq. For several years, Syria has been [...]

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Why the U.S. is back on the road to Damascus

February 8, 2010

Time magazine on the new phase in US-Syrian relations:
Unlike many U.S. embassies in the Arab world that have been forced by security concerns to move from the center of capital cities to fortress-like suburban compounds, the Damascus embassy still occupies prime real estate — just a stone’s throw from the residence of Syrian President Bashar [...]

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On Israel-Palestine, no more of the same

February 3, 2010

Yossi Alpher:
President Obama and Mr. Mitchell must recognize that in the current regional strategic lineup, Syria is more relevant than Palestine. Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, declares himself ready to deal. A Syrian-Israeli process has a better chance of getting underway than a Palestinian-Israeli process. A successful Syrian-Israeli effort offers the United States, Israel and the [...]

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Lebanon drama adds act with leader’s trip to Syria

December 22, 2009

Lebanon drama adds act with leader’s trip to Syria
By Robert F Worth, New York Times, December 21, 2009
In any other part of the world, a new prime minister’s visit to a neighboring country would be a fairly routine event. But Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s trip to Syria over the weekend has been treated here as [...]

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Relations with Turkey kindle hopes in Syria

December 15, 2009

Relations with Turkey kindle hopes in Syria
By Robert F Worth, New York Times, December 15, 2009
Ever since Syria and Turkey lifted their visa restrictions in September, Turkish visitors have poured into this picturesque northern city. Hawkers in Aleppo’s ancient souk now call out to shoppers in Turkish, and cross-border commerce has soared. The two countries [...]

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Snubbed by Europe, now Turkey looks to the East

October 21, 2009

Snubbed by Europe, now Turkey looks to the East
By Emile Hokayem, The National, October 20, 2009
The accession to power of the Justice and Development Party (AKP), a moderate Islamist organisation, provided the domestic impulse to redefine the country’s approach to the Middle East. Under the AKP, Turkey is rediscovering its eastern identity, combining it with [...]

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Iraq burns its bridges with Syria

August 27, 2009

Iraq burns its bridges with Syria
By Sami Moubayed, Asia Times, August 27, 2009
Relations between Iraq and Syria plunged abruptly on Tuesday after Baghdad recalled its ambassador to Damascus over the recent bombings in the Iraqi capital in which 100 Iraqis were killed.
The attacks, which ripped through government buildings on August 19, were the worst in [...]

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Damascus agrees to help monitor Iraqi border

August 19, 2009

Damascus agrees to help monitor Iraqi border
By Jay Solomon and Julien Barnes-Dacey, Wall Street Journal, August 19, 2009
The Obama administration and Damascus tentatively agreed to establish a tripartite committee, with Baghdad, to better monitor the Syrian-Iraqi border as the Pentagon draws down American troops from Iraq in coming months, said senior U.S. officials.
The proposed three-way [...]

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Syria key to regional power shift

July 29, 2009

Syria key to regional power shift
By Mark Levine, Al Jazeera, July 28, 2009
It is hard not to feel like it is déjà vu all over again.
A US Middle East peace envoy travels to Damascus and then to Israel in an effort to jump start Israel-Syrian negotiations over a land for peace deal involving the Golan [...]

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EDITORIAL: Syria’s nuclear reactor

April 25, 2008

The Al Kibar nuclear reactor in Syria
By Paul Woodward, War in Context, April 25, 2008
As someone who voiced great skepticism about the initial claims that Israel destroyed a nuclear facility in the Syrian desert on September 6, 2007, I’ll be the first to admit that the evidence provided in the DNI background briefing presents proof [...]

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FEATURE: What did Israel bomb in Syria?

February 4, 2008

A strike in the dark
By Seymour M. Hersh, The New Yorker, February 3, 2008
Shortly after the [Israeli] bombing [in Syria, last September], a Chinese envoy and one of the Bush Administration’s senior national-security officials met in Washington. The Chinese envoy had just returned from a visit to Tehran, a person familiar with the discussion told [...]

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NEWS ROUNDUP: Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Israel, Gaza, Syria

January 15, 2008

Bush prods Saudi Arabia on high oil prices
By Stephen Lee Myers, New York Times, January 16, 2008
President Bush urged the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries on Tuesday to take into account the toll that high oil prices are having on the American economy, gingerly touching on an issue that has begun to color the [...]

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