Significant Middle East Developments

Israel. President Obama held three hours of talks with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House Monday. The two focused almost entirely on the challenge posed by Iran’s nuclear development efforts. President Obama also met with visiting Israeli president Shimon Peres on the margins of the annual AIPAC convention. Read more »

Kofi Annan, the newly appointed United Nations and Arab League envoy to Syria, travels to the Middle East today to kick off his diplomatic efforts. He will stop first in Cairo, where he will meet Arab League representatives. On Saturday, Annan visits Damascus to see President Bashar al-Assad as part of a mission “to seek an urgent end to all violence and human rights violations, and to initiate the effort to promote a peaceful solution to the Syrian crisis.” Traveling to Egypt and Syria are surely necessary, but will soon prove to be insufficient.   Read more »

Significant Middle East Developments

Hamas. Hamas officials announced today a break with long-time ally Syrian president Assad. Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh told a crowd of thousands at Cairo’s al-Azhar Mosque: “I salute all the nations of the Arab Spring and I salute the heroic people of Syria who are striving for freedom, democracy, and reform.” The announcement indicates a dramatic shift in alignment for the organization that until recently had been headquartered in Damascus. Read more »

A new chapter in the struggle for Syria opens on Friday with the meeting of some seventy foreign ministers and senior officials in Tunis. Having dabbled episodically with President Bashar al-Assad’s ruthless bloodshed against the Syrian people, the first meeting of the “Friends of Syria” signifies the solid placement of this issue at the top of the international agenda. Read more »

Significant Middle East Developments

Syria. The UN General Assembly overwhelmingly approved a new resolution Thursday calling for Syrian president Bashar al-Assad to end the brutal attacks on the Syrian people. Initial vote counts indicate the resolution received 137 votes in favor, twelve against, and seventeen abstentions. The vote came as the Syrian military stepped up its assault against opposition strongholds, including severe bombardments of Homs, Hama, and Deraa. Read more »

The Arab League’s moves against Bashar al-Assad’s brutal regime yesterday are striking, coming on the heels of Russia and China’s veto of a Security Council resolution condemning Syria the week before. Rather than back down in light of the international community’s failure to condemn Syria, the Arab League called for even more robust action and backed it up with measures—some symbolic, some tangible—that will increase Syria’s regional isolation and ratchet up the diplomatic pressure on Damascus. Three elements of the Arab League’s call yesterday are noteworthy: Read more »

Significant Middle East Developments

Syria. Russia and China vetoed an Arab and Western-backed resolution at the UN Security Council last Saturday following a flurry of negotiations. Russia succeeded in watering down the text of the resolution, only to then vote against it. (I offer a proposal for engaging the Russians in a ‘grand bargain’ as the international community considers more robust means to halt the bloodshed in Syria, which is available here.) Read more »

Significant Middle East Developments

Syria. Diplomatic activity shifted to New York with foreign ministers, including Secretary of State Clinton, convening on Tuesday at the UN Security Council in attempts to forge a consensus over next steps to address the Syrian crisis. Russia declared its intent to veto any resolution that explicitly calls for regime change, sanctions, or an arms embargo. Read more »

The Arab League met yesterday to assess its observer mission to Syria so far and to consider further steps. Syria’s reprehensible behavior and the Arab League’s inability to stop it will doubtlessly lead to stepped-up calls for international military intervention. While such calls may be justified, any military intervention in Syria is still a long way off. Few countries are prepared to intervene militarily in Syria, nor are the goals of such military action entirely clear. Read more »