By Gideon Rachman
The calls for “something to be done” about Syria are getting louder in the US and Europe – so loud that they may soon be heeded. The first step, which could come fairly quickly, would be to supply the Syrian opposition with weapons. The second, which is under active consideration, would be to establish a no-fly zone. Read more
Romney – a candidate lacking Middle East nuance
Mit Romney delivers his foreign policy speech at the Virginia Military Institute. (Getty)
The Middle East is an easy target for an aspiring US president on the attack against an incumbent rival. You can bet that there are enough unresolved crises that affect America in one way or another, and I don’t mean just the perennial Arab-Israeli conflict.
And, since the region has something of a love-hate relationship with the US, there will always be a sufficient number of critics within the Middle East to back up the American presidential candidate’s arguments, however flawed they might be.
Which brings us to Mitt Romney’s foreign policy speech today at the Virginia Military Institute in which he first tore apart Barack Obama’s Middle Eastern policies, but then proceeded to outline a rather similar approach couched as fundamental change. Read more
Our selection of interesting articles from around the world today: Read more
We’ve got plenty of brain food for you today: Read more
Here’s what piqued our interest today: Read more
The Olympics are on our doorstep, but we’re still picking up interesting articles from around the world: Read more
Here’s what we’ve been reading, while keeping an eye on the Olympics: Read more
Conflict intensifies in Syria
This week the FT’s world news editor Shawn Donnan is joined by James Blitz, diplomatic editor and Abigail Fielding-Smith in Beirut to discuss the conflict in Syria. Violence in the capital Damascus and commercial centre Aleppo, the disclosure that the regime possesses chemical weapons, refugee flight and the risk of instability spreading into Lebanon – is there now a case for western intervention? Read more
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