Oct 16, 2013, Washington Post Several dozen rebel groups in southern Syria have broken with the main political opposition group in exile, a local commander said in a video posted Wednesday, dealing a potential new setback to Western efforts to unify moderates battling President Bashar Assad’s regime. The Turkey-based Syrian …

Oct 18, RT.com The Pentagon plans to sell $10.8 billion worth of advanced weaponry to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The hardware includes bunker buster bombs and cruise missiles. The planned deal includes shipping 1,000 GBU-39/B bombs to Saudi Arabia and 5,000 to the UAE, AFP reports. They …

Oct 18, 2013, Asia Times Life is good if you’re a member of the Gulf Counter-revolution Club, officially known as Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). You can crush the Arab Spring at will. You can hire goons all across dar-al-Islam to advance a sectarian Sunni-Shi’ite divide. You can be deeply implicated …

Oct 16, 2013, Consortium News For at least the past dozen years, the U.S. government has aggressively sought to gain control of the leadership of key United Nations agencies, including the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) which is central to the dispute over the Syrian government’s alleged …

Oct 14, 2013, Counter Punch In modern times, France has done far better diplomatically when it has advocated against impetuous military involvement in the internal affairs of other countries. French standing in international politics has been highest when its government was cautious about its military involvement, when it adopted the …

Sep 3, 2013, LRB One evening in January at a hotel bar in Manhattan, I tried to ingratiate myself with an officer from Bahrain’s mission to the United Nations. Munira (not her real name) was a former student of a friend of mine. She was also a regime insider, close …

Sep 2, 2013, McClatchy The Obama administration’s public case for attacking Syria is riddled with inconsistencies and hinges mainly on circumstantial evidence, undermining U.S. efforts this week to build support at home and abroad for a punitive strike against Bashar Assad’s regime. The case Secretary of State John Kerry laid …

Oct 11, 2013, Asia Times Every sentient being with a functional brain perceives the possibility of ending the 34-year Wall of Mistrust between Washington and Tehran as a win-win situation. Here are some of the benefits: The price of oil and gas from the Persian Gulf would go down; Washington …

Sep 12, 2013, Information Clearinghouse As part of the Obama administration’s repeated insistence – though without offering proof – that the recent sarin gas attack near Damascus was the work of the Assad regime, the administration has downplayed or denied the possibility that al-Qaida-linked Syrian rebels could produce deadly chemical …

What’s Going On In Syria? by Syria Solidarity Movement and Mussalaha (Reconciliation) Movement This workshop will feature a live presentation by Mother Agnes Mariam who is coming directly from the Middle East. She will discuss the background to the conflict and the conclusions of her detailed study of the chemical …