As direct military intervention has been ruled out for the UK by the Commons, we must turn to our non-military options to see how the UK can now push for peace and make an impact for the good in Syria.
Neither ending the bloodshed nor preventing the further use of weapons of mass destruction in Syria is served by military intervention. Amidst speculation over the US-UK special relationship, the Iranian reaction points a way forward.
Regardless of how ‘surgical’ strikes are claimed to be, military action is a blunt instrument that, in this case, is on the table merely because of a poverty of alternatives.
Part Two of an analysis of the geopolitical sectarian dynamics and possible fall-out of military intervention in Syria, looking at prospects for meaningful change, and summing up on intervention. Read Part One here.
Part One of a two-part analysis of the geopolitical sectarian dynamics and possible fall-out of military intervention in Syria. Read Part Two here.
Soon, military action against the Assad regime by western powers may be all but inevitable. But what kind of action, for what purpose, in the service of what larger strategy?
Ten years ago today in Baghdad a terror attack blasted apart the UN headquarters in Iraq... At the moment of the explosion Gil Loescher and Arthur Helton were sitting down to interview Sergio Vieira de Mello for their joint openDemocracy column....
Bahrain's attempt to hold the state security services to account is channeled through campaigning, lobbying and of course the revolution itself. But what help are the official channels, and the law?
Just after the Arab Spring was brutally crushed in Bahrain, Britain's John Yates, the former Assistant Metropolitan Police Commissioner, became an advisor to the Ministry of Interior. What happened next?
The recently issued EU guidelines banning funding to projects in settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory is not a new proactive political strategy; it is simply a matter of legal necessity.