President Obama defended the administration's decision to "ramp up" their support to Syrian rebel forces by, among other things, providing some lethal aid, during a sprawling interview with Charlie Rose that aired late Monday night on PBS.
Maybe Russia wouldn't have ditched Bashar al-Assad if he stopped doing gross stuff like bombing a line-up of Syrian citizens lined up to get bread because there's an food shortage because of the civil war there.
Russia has been Syria's Bashar al-Assad's staunchest ally during it's long war against his citizens, but now they're even trying to distance themselves from the embattled leader.
A summary of the best reads found behind the paywall of The New York Times.
Russian President Vladimir Putin took questions from the media in a marathon press conference today that covered everything from Gerard Depardieu to the end of the world, and even a few things that actually matter.
A summary of the best reads found behind the paywall of The New York Times.
Jonathan Cohn on the emerging fiscal cliff deal, Frank Bruni on a shooting's aftermath, Jeffrey Toobin on the Second Amendment, Haytham Manna on Syria, and Josh Kraushaar on Tim Scott.
NBC News has revealed that their top foreign correspondent Richard Engel and his crew have been released from captivity after going missing in Syria for nearly a week.
Farouk Al-Sharaa is technically still the vice-president of Syria, but is quick to remind everyone that he doesn't make any decisions on behalf of the regime.
It's scary enough to think of what the Assad regime could do with the several hundred tons of chemical weapons that are scattered across Syria. It's simply horrifying to think of what terrorists would do.
The United States has agreed to send two Patriot missile batteries to defend Turkey's border against Syria missiles, and that also means 400 more American troops will be on the ground and closer than ever to the ongoing fight in Syria.
A high ranking Russian minister has publicly admitted that the Syrian government might lose its civil war, but doesn't seem excited about the possibility of a future without Bashar al-Assad.
It's the first time Assad's forced have used the weapons inside their own country. A senior official says that Obama administration considers this "a significant escalation" — especially given the possibility that SCUDs could be used to deliver chemical weapons.
A new crisis is falling upon the war-torn city of Damascus as reports say that food is running dangerously short, just as a long, cold winter is about hit the region.
The Syrian rebel government scored a major victory on Tuesday night when the Obama administration threw its support behind the coalition. This doesn't mean we'll be sending them weapons anytime soon, though.
British military leaders are reportedly building a coalition to provide military help to the Syrian opposition, but the rebels are instead turning to an Islamist group that the U.S. says are terrorists — and maybe rejecting American help outright.
The gains have come with disturbing new signs — video decapitations, al Qaeda links, and more — that the rebels may end up nearly as brutal in victory as the regime they're hoping to replace.
As Syria's rebels work to overthrow the tank-equipped Assad regime, they've learned that it helps to have tanks of their own. They deserve bonus points for integrating video game technology.
John Cassidy on austerity, Paul Krugman on the job crises, Shashank Joshi on Syria, Jamelle Bouie on Bobby Jindal, and Glen Weldon on Bazooka Joe.
Dina Esfandiary on Syria's chemical weapons, David Ignatius on an economic NATO, Ezra Klein on budget bickering, Amy Davidson on Bob Costas, and Nora Caplan-Bricker on Uganda.
President Obama said that the use of chemical weapons would bring "consequences" to Syria, but with nerve gas bombs already being filled, would the United States act before Bashar al-Assad unleashes them? Can they act?
Bad news: Syria has filled several aerial bombs with the deadly nerve gas sarin and is ready to drop them onto its own people as soon as President Bashar al-Assad gives the word.
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.
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