The Assad regime in Syria is broke. That was the consensus of every expert, and resident, more than one year ago. American officials noted that the regime was struggling to find a way to print currency, and that by July of last year the regime had spent more than half of its sovereign wealth fund. […]
The prospects of a Geneva II conference to resolve the Syrian crisis occurring in November are fading, as several key unresolved issues remain. The first is that the Syrian opposition that took to the streets to protest, and later to fight, against Bashar al Assad remains unwilling to negotiate until Assad’s resignation is agreed to […]
U.S. President Barack Obama made a speech to the United Nations on Tuesday. He addressed many issues, but there were two key areas, the crisis in Syria and Iran’s nuclear program, that were his focus. On Syria, Obama said that Assad must be held accountable for using chemical weapons on August 21st, an event with […]
Andrey Kokoshin, the Dean of the MSU Faculty of World Politics, talks with the pro-Kremlin Izvestia about the possible consequences of a U.S. strike against Damascus for the international community. Kokoshin states, among other things, that Saudi Arabia and Iran will both be encouraged to develop nuclear weapons should Syria be attacked by the West, […]
Kommersant publishes this article, claiming that Russia will go ahead and deliver the S-300, a powerful anti-aircraft system, to Iran. However, Interfax news agency has published an article which disputes this claim. Their source says that the delivery of the modified S-300 system can’t be excluded, but that no plan has yet been put into […]
Russia-U.S. relations have gone from chilly to frigid, as the cancelled bilateral presidential summit has led to concern that a new Cold War is on the horizon. While those fears are unrealistic (and have been dismissed by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov) things are not about to warm up any time soon, as Russia will sign […]
To begin with, Barack Obama’s planned summit with Vladimir Putin next month in St. Petersburg, in advance of the upcoming Group of 20 confab in that city, was not really “cancelled,” as has been widely reported. It was “postponed,” a semantic distinction with a difference, even in the style of more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger diplomacy which now characterizes […]
Among the many debates surrounding the endless bloodshed in Syria, one of the loudest has been over Russia’s defense of its sale of advanced anti-aircraft missiles (S-300) to the Assad regime. Pointing to the fact that the contracts were signed before the conflict, and justifying their fulfillment as legal under international law, the sale has nevertheless […]
