Assad

Granted, you don’t really expect foreign policy to feature much in an election campaign – we’re not saints – but it’s still shaming the way that the biggest foreign policy issue simply doesn’t register on the radar right now. I refer obviously to Islamic State, the group that just keeps on giving when it comes to reasons to want them wiped out. It’s a toss up really whether you go for the recently exhumed mass graves of the soldiers they massacred in Tikrit, the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp they seized control of, the images they obligingly posted of themselves smashing artefacts at Hatra or the blowing up an Assyrian church over

Jeremy Bowen’s half-hour long interview with Bashar al-Assad is being heavily trailed by the BBC this morning.  And while it has little that is new it does provide an interesting insight into the Syrian President’s current situation. The main story from it is Assad’s confirmation that there is some line of communication between the Syrian regime and the Americans. Bowen put to Assad that there are American planes over Syria all the time engaged in the fight against Isis and that there must be some contact between them. While confirming that they do not speak directly, Assad did confirm that Iraq and other countries act as intermediaries.  But it was the

As oil prices continue to plummet, the rather sterile debate over Saudi intentions drags on. Some believe the Saudis are locked into a secret conspiracy with Washington to stiff Russia and Iran. Others prefer to take the Saudi oil minister at his word and believe that it’s all about market share. The truth is that the debate is founded on a false dichotomy: the Saudis are doing both things at once, and several other things as well. The best way to understand this is to try to step into the shoes (or sandals, rather) of a senior member of the al-Saud family. Your neighbourhood is convulsed in war and revolution,

The United States faces a very difficult task in Syria. It is trying to use air raids to contain and weaken ISIl. But, at the same time, it is trying to prevent the Assad regime from turning this intervention to its advantage. However, as the Washington Post reports today, the Assad regime have taken advantage of ISIl being pinned back to turn their fire on the moderate rebels, the very group that the US is trying to help. As the situation in Iraq is demonstrating, air strikes against ISIl can be effective when paired with ground operations. But in Syria, the US has no effective allies on the ground. The

‘We must stop using the language of force and return to the path of civilized diplomatic and political settlement.’ So wrote Vladimir Putin in The New York Times in September last year. Last week, he invaded Ukraine. A system of ‘international law’ which gives a man like President Putin the right to decide whether a proposed action is legal or not, is morally bankrupt. Yet that is how the United Nations Security Council functions – and that is why Western democracies should not shrink from taking action even when the Russian veto stands in the way. President Putin’s New York Times piece was about Syria. He was appealing to the American

As Syria’s second peace conference looms, and we prepare ourselves for a lot of hot air drifting over from Geneva, I’ve been making a list of those players in the civil war who actually want peace and those who don’t fancy it one bit. The anti-peace side is easy. There’s Bashar al-Assad, of course. Hillary saw to that during the first conference. Perhaps she’s right that he shouldn’t be part of any transitional government, but if he loses all power, Assad and his Alawite clan are toast. So what use is peace to him? The rebels of the Islamic Front alliance are the latest Washington craze; they’re the alliance of

   Amman — Beirut — Istanbul I recently bumped into a senior officer with the rebel Free Syrian Army who was waiting in the passport queue at the Turkish border. I didn’t recognise him at first, out of uniform and without his entourage, and I told him so. He was following the example of the 7th-century Second Caliph, Omar bin al Khattab, he replied. The caliph was so humble he took turns with his servant riding a horse to Jerusalem to receive the city’s surrender. There was no imagery from Islamic history when I first met the officer a year ago. He was one of those ‘rebels’ western officials have

There’s little need for people opposed to launching any kind of attack on Syria to expend much energy doing so when those tasked with making the case for reminding Bashar al-Assad that using chemical weapons is not something the international community can or will ignore are making such a bloody hash of the job. Here, for instance, is John Kerry, the US Secretary of State, reminding us all that the Americans really don’t want to be taking action at all. They’ve been pushed into doing so, the result of both the Syrian regime’s use of chemical weapons (why assume Assad’s people are clever enough not to use them?) and by President Barack

A decade ago, I was sure that going to war in Iraq was the right thing to do. I persisted in that belief for a long time too, well beyond the point at which most supporters of the decision to remove Saddam Hussein from power had recanted their past enthusiasm. The link between 9/11 and Iraq was quite apparent. Not because (despite what some mistaken people insisted) Saddam had any involvement in the atrocity but because removing tyrants and dictators seemed the best way of spreading the pacifying forces of commerce and democracy that might, in time, render Islamist extremism and terrorism obsolete. Why Iraq? Because it was there and

Say this for George Galloway: every time you think he cannot sink any lower he finds new ways to surprise you. His latest contribution to Press TV, Iran’s propaganda station, speaks for itself. Parody is pointless. Given his history and his paymasters, we would expect him to defend the Assad regime in Syria. Even so, under-estimating his ability to sniff out the true villains is never sensible. Here’s his “analysis” of the use of chemical weapons in Syria: “If there’s been any use of nerve gas it’s the rebels that used it. […] If there has been a use of chemical weapons it was al-Qaeda who used chemical weapons. Who

Two years too late and with less than full conviction President Obama has finally announced that his administration will aid the Syrian rebels with lethal force. This follows confirmation by the White House last night of what was already well known – that Bashar al-Assad has been using chemical weapons against his own people. Obama’s intervention will be of limited utility. Supplying rebels with heavy arms and anti-aircraft missiles principally help civilians exposed to air raids and scud missile attacks, but will not help the rebels make significant gains. This might be precisely what Obama wants, but he will struggle to limit the extent of American involvement now. Having decided