The Assad regime was behind the stomach-churning nerve agent attack on Ghouta. This is not conjecture. This is not a probability. This just simply is.
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Simon Schofield August 26, 2013 Middle East and North Africa
The Assad regime was behind the stomach-churning nerve agent attack on Ghouta. This is not conjecture. This is not a probability. This just simply is.
Read More »Julie Lenarz August 22, 2013 Middle East and North Africa
Just six weeks after the overthrow of Mohamed Morsi’s government, Egypt finds itself on the precipice of civil war and complete meltdown.
Read More »Julie Lenarz August 21, 2013 Global Governance and Human Rights, Middle East and North Africa, Russia and Eurasia
Since the end of the Cold War, Russia’s influence in the Middle East has been greatly undermined and its policy has changed in emphasis and intensity. While during the clash between the two superpowers – the US and the Soviet Union – the Middle East was part of its ideological battlefield
Read More »Simon Schofield August 7, 2013 Middle East and North Africa, Security and Defence
Whenever Afghanistan comes up in conversation, there are nearly always at least one of two myths put forward: firstly, that the only thing being achieved in this war is an increasing death toll of our troops; secondly, that the Afghans do not want us there and they were better off before we invaded.
Read More »Rob Marchant August 1, 2013 Middle East and North Africa
I respect Roger Waters’ right to encourage others to boycott Israeli goods, though I disagree with it. But what is plainly foolish, not to mention an insult to that noble struggle against racism, is to talk as former the Pink Floyd bassist does about “apartheid”.
Read More »John Slinger July 20, 2013 HSC in the Media, Middle East and North Africa
John Slinger writes in the New Statesman, that much more can be done short of an Iraq-style invasion in Syria. All too often, international events bear out the adage that "history teaches us that history teaches us nothing". Lessons from the shameful response of the international community to other crises must inform our policy on Syria
Read More »Simon Schofield July 20, 2013 Middle East and North Africa, Opinion
We were wrong about Saddam Hussein. By ‘we’ I don’t mean the international intelligence community and I don’t mean the governments of the Coalition of the Willing. I mean the public and the media who, to this day, believe and say that what was found in Iraq after the fall of Saddam’s Baathist regime showed Saddam was not a threat to the international society.
Read More »Rob Marchant July 19, 2013 Middle East and North Africa
Surprise is surely the last thing we should feel at Foreign Secretary William Hague, reporting on Monday that there was increasing evidence that President Assad was using chemical weapons on his own people.
Read More »Julie Lenarz July 3, 2013 Middle East and North Africa
The crisis in Syria is on-going and so is the debate about the West’s options to help end the bloodshed. Those in favour of a more pro-active policy are regularly confronted with a variety of arguments against intervention.
Read More »Simon Schofield June 27, 2013 Global Governance and Human Rights, Middle East and North Africa
Human rights are universal, but they are yet to be universalised. Transparent sovereignty is the answer. Whilst being a legalistic term that tends to evoke groans, apprehensive of impending, inevitable boredom, the word ‘sovereignty’ is central to any debate on whether humanitarian intervention in the internal affairs of a State is appropriate or justifiable.
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