Daniel McAdams

The Syria “cessation of hostilities” agreement seems all the stranger as huge unanswered questions regarding signatories, partners, monitoring, reporting, adjudication, and enforcement are raised. It seems more and more like something cobbled together without much thought as to how it might work in practice. Indeed, the people who are paid to explain to us how … Continue reading “The Incredible Shrinking Syrian ‘Ceasefire’”

Robert Ford was US Ambassador to Syria when the revolt against Syrian president Assad was launched. He not only was a chief architect of regime change in Syria, but actively worked with rebels to aid their overthrow of the Syrian government. Ford assured us that those taking up arms to overthrow the Syrian government were … Continue reading “You Won’t Believe What This US Ambassador Said About al-Qaeda’s Syrian Allies”

Just three days ago, emerging from Moscow meetings with Russian foreign minister Lavrov and president Putin, US Secretary of State John Kerry signaled a major shift in US foreign policy toward Syria. “The United States and our partners are not seeking so-called regime change,” he told the media. The media rightly reported the apparent US … Continue reading “White House Schizophrenia – Kerry: ‘Assad Can Stay’; Obama: ‘Assad Must Go’”

One of the most depressing things about watching – even from a distance – the quadrennial race for the White House is seeing what passes for debate on the one area where the president does have some Constitutional authority: foreign policy. Candidates who have spent little or no time studying or traveling to the rest … Continue reading “The Neocon Foreign Policy Walmart”

Images are a powerful tool in the hands of propagandists. A picture is worth a thousand words, as the saying goes. If a powerful image can be manipulated to tell a tale even if false, it can persuade more viscerally than can a thousand reasoned arguments. So it is with the tragic photograph making the … Continue reading “Abusing Dead Syrian Children”

Imagine you are in Lafayette Park, across from the White House, setting up tents and loudspeakers without a permit to occupy the park with a group of several thousand protesters, guzzling beer and vodka. How long do you think it would be before the Secret Service or other uniformed local and federal officers moved in … Continue reading “How Lukashenko Won”