Five Best Wednesday Columns
Eliza Gray on Bradley Manning and the Times, Daphne Wysham on the World Bank, Henry Paulson on China's cities, Shadi Hamid on Egypt, and Mark Adomanis on Syria.
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Russia, one of the few remaining friends of Bashar al-Assad's regime, just sent the Syrian government some advanced antiship missiles.
Eliza Gray on Bradley Manning and the Times, Daphne Wysham on the World Bank, Henry Paulson on China's cities, Shadi Hamid on Egypt, and Mark Adomanis on Syria.
Vladimir Putin (who is alive and well!) met with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan yesterday and reportedly signaled that Russia may be willing to push for a new plan to peacefully remove Bashar al-Assad from power in Syria.
Jihad Makdissi, who until yesterday was the spokesperson for Syria's foreign ministry and one of the main voices of Bashar al-Assad's regime, has reportedly left the country.
As concern grows over Syria's stockpile of chemical weapons, a new report suggests that one country is already figuring out how it intends to bomb them out of existence.
Bashar al-Assad's efforts to disrupt the pesky rebellion in his country by cutting off access to the internet was probably because the rebels use Skype as a way to keep tabs on his army's movement. Thankfully, the rebels planned ahead.
It's been almost a full day now and the nation of Syria remains completely cut off from the rest of the Internet (and by extension, the outside world.) Internet analysts who watched the collapse in real-time think they've figured out how it was done.
Rumors began spreading early this morning that phone and internet services were failing in major Syrian cities, but several Internet traffic companies have now determined that every single Syrian IP address has effectively been blocked.
A summary of the best reads found behind the paywall of The New York Times.
According to The New York Times, the White House is "considering several alternatives" to intervention in the Syrian civil war, but remains leery about the backlash of sparking a wider conflict—even as time runs down on how or whether to step in.
More than 50 people were killed this morning when two coordinated car bombs were set off in a mostly Christian neighborhood in the center of the Syrian capital, prompting fears of a new "Battle for Damascus."
As the Syrian economy began to unravel and the military pressed hard against an armed rebellion, a Syrian government plane ferried what flight records describe as more than 200 tons of "bank notes" from Moscow.
At a certain point, it seemed like much of the world grew numb to the violence in Syria. But it's hard not to be disturbed by a new video showing a street littered with children's bloody bodies.
Mark Bittman on Thanksgiving dinner, Jeffrey Goldberg on Israel, Jeffrey Toobin on the filibuster, Ian Bremmer on Syria, and John Podhoretz on how Obama won.
Thomas L. Friedman on Syria, Chuck Thompson on Texas, Vali Nasr on drones, Christopher Dickey on Jordan, and Doyle McManus on Obama's cabinet.
Israel's military fired weapons into Syria for the second straight day in response to errant cross-border firing that threatens to draw the Israeli's into Syria's civil war.
The disparate factions of the Syrian opposition all gathered at a luxury hotel in Doha this weekend and on Sunday night signed an agreement that unites nearly all of the rebel groups for the first time.
No one can say Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu backs down from a fight. The leader looking for reelection let two old foes know that if they want to start something with Israel, he'd be happy to finish it.
The United Nations said this morning that more 11,000 Syrians have left the country in the last 24 hours, fleeing to Turkey, Jordan, and Lebanon.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad gave an interview to Russian-based TV network RT, stating that he has no intention of leaving his country and warned against Western intervention in its civil war.
Although they don't get a vote, there have been a lot of questions about who the rest of the world would like like to see leading the United States for the next four years, and now least one faction of the Syria civil war has made their opinion known.
Of all the sad, true tales to come of the Syrian civil war over the last 20 months, a bizarre story by journalist Robert Fisk in The Independent may be the most ludicrous. And ludicrously off-base.
Neither side took the United Nations-backed ceasefire in Syria very seriously and on Monday, the tenuous four-day truce collapsed into all-out fighting.
The four day ceasefire agreed upon by Bashar al-Assad and Syrian rebels should be observing its second day, but both sides have continued fighting and show no signs of slowing down.
The proposed holiday cease fire in Syria was broken before it ever began on Friday, with both sides of the conflict refusing to give up the fight, even for a day.
A summary of the best reads found behind the paywall of The New York Times.
The United Nations envoy to Syria says Bashar al-Assad has agreed to cease fire during the upcoming Eid al-Adha holiday, but will he honor it?
A summary of the best reads found behind the paywall of The New York Times.
Bashar al-Assad has offered general amnesty for all crimes committed in Syria before today, provided those crimes don't actually have anything to do with the country's ongoing civil war.
On Monday, sporadic violence in Lebanon broke out in wake of the Friday assassination of Wissam al-Hassan, a top Lebanese security official and longtime critic of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
A massive car bomb exploded in Central Beiruit today, killing at least eight people in an attack that may be tied to the growing strife over the situation in Syria.
For months, the U.S. has been helping Arab allies coordinate arms shipments to rebel fighters in Syria. Unfortunately, most of those weapons are going to radical Islamists instead of secular opposition groups.
The Syrian military suffered its largest one day death toll on Thursday, as rebel fighters are using larger and more sophisticated bomb attacks to strike back at the regime.
Turkey ordered a Syrian civilian plane flying from Moscow to land in Ankara yesterday on the suspicion it was carrying some suspicious cargo. Today, Turkey said they found ammunition and military supplies. Syria wants to see the supposed guns they won't be receiving.
Turkey is just about fed up with Syria and they're not going to take it anymore. Today, they've announced they're going to respond—really respond—if they're attacked again, and they forced down a Syrian plane flying from Moscow to search it for heavy weapons.
A summary of the best reads found behind the paywall of The New York Times.
While world powers try to simmer tensions between Syria and Turkey, Turkey's still heating things up. Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan issued a stern warning to Syria Friday, saying "we're not far" from war, in a speech before a crowd in Istanbul.
The Turkish Parliament is debating a bill that would authorize military action inside Syria's borders as it continues to trade shelling with its neighbor.
The civil war in Syria has taken one step closer toward a regional war as Turkish artillery fired on targets in Syria today, according to a statement by Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
In one of the more powerful testaments to the destructive power of suicide bombings, Syria's state news agency released the above photo from an attack in Syria's second city Aleppo today.
Three large explosions tore up a central square in the city of Aleppo this morning, where the government and Syrian rebels have staged some of the fiercest fighting of the war in recent weeks.
In today's tour of state-sponsored terrorism: Syria's media takes a rare jab at an ally, a Chinese propaganda film enters the U.S. 2012 race, and Iran cracks down on the media.
A summary of the best reads found behind the paywall of The New York Times.
In a hopeful sign, a YouTube video published last week shows American journalist Austin Tice alive after being captured by armed militants.
Saudi-owned news agency Al Arabiya are touting a massive leak of Syrian intelligence documents, and their first leak alleges to show Russia was the one who ordered Syria take down the Turkish fighter jet in June, and for Syria to kill and dispose of the pilots.
Leaving no form of warfare unexplored, Syrian forces employed a teenage form of warfare and sent out a text-message blast to phones across the country that said "Game Over" on Thursday, reportedly the bloodiest day of the country's 18-month civil war.
As world leaders deadlock over what to do about Syria at the United Nations summit in New York, the war-torn country has experienced one of the bloodiest days of its 18-month civil war.
A summary of the best reads found behind the paywall of The New York Times.
In a signal that journalists are being targeted by both sides in the civil war in Syria, a pro-regime Iranian reporter was killed by sniper fire apparently from rebel soldiers.
Back-to-back bombs hit a major military compound in the center of Damascus on Wednesday, setting fire to the country's main military compound and leading to a gun battle that has raged for hours.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told the Associated Press that his country is finally going to do something about the Syrian conflict, which would be more encouraging if he hadn't made a similar promise before.
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