With the Islamic State creating chaos next door in Iraq, Kuwait is arming itself to the teeth. The tiny, oil-rich nation just signed a defense deal with France worth $2.8 billion.

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls and his Kuwaiti counterpart Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak Al-Hamad al-Sabah finalized the agreement on Wednesday in Paris. France will equip Kuwait with 24 Caracal helicopters, with an option for six more, as part of a contract worth $1.2 billion. The helicopter was designed for cargo transport and search and rescue missions, and has supported military operations in Afghanistan, Libya, and Mali.

The two countries have also inked two provisional agreements. One involves France upgrading and maintaining Kuwait’s small patrol warships, the other reportedly involves the sale of French-made all-terrain Sherpa trucks — light armored vehicles with 360-degree firepower that can carry up to four people and are designed to withstand landmines.

“Lately, Kuwait has started arming itself, mainly because it shares a border with Iraq, where the Islamic State is gaining traction and is now a viable threat,” explained Emma Soubrier, a a Gulf defense expert at the University of Auvergne in France. “When you consider the attacks that have been carried out against Kuwait, you can see why the country feels that it needs to arm itself.”

A bombing claimed by the Islamic State killed 27 people at the Shia Imam Sadiq Mosque in the capital Kuwait City in June. “We are in a state of war. […] There are other [terror] cells, and we will not wait for them to try their luck with us,” Interior Minister Sheikh Mohammad Al-Khaled Al-Sabah said after the attack.

France and Kuwait signed their first defense agreement in 1992 and renewed it in 2009. The deal outlines strategic and military cooperation between the two countries, including on equipment and training of troops. Today, a quarter of troops serving in Kuwait’s navy are trained in France.

French defense exports have already raked in $13.6 billion in 2015, up from $5.5 billion in 2012 and $9.3 billion in 2014. Gulf states like Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia ,and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are among the French defense industry’s biggest clients.

In February 2015, France also clinched a deal to sell 24 Rafale fighter jets and a multipurpose naval frigate to Egypt, as part of a military weapons contract worth over $5.7 billion. Qatar followed suit in May, ordering 24 French-made Rafale jets.

“The United States are reluctant to sell to those countries that are today buying a lot of weapons from us,” said Jean-Vincent Brisset, a general in the French air force and a senior research fellow at the Institute for International and Strategic Relations. “And France is no longer conflicted — unlike Germany, for example — and is giving out unprecedented financial deals.”

Saudi Arabia, which has historically turned to the US for most of its weapons needs, inked a $11.3 billion deal with France in June. Soubrier described the deal as “strategic posturing,” aimed at “punishing the US for its policy — too close to Iran and not tough enough on Syria.”

vice.com

The Armenian parliamentarians will continue standing with brotherly Syria in all international platforms.

President of the National Assembly (NA) of Armenia, Galust Sahakyan, on Wednesday noted the aforesaid at his talk in Geneva, Switzerland, with speaker Mohammad Jihad al-Laham of the People’s Council (parliament) of Syria.

Their talk was held along the lines of the 133rd Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union.

Sahakyan also noted that Armenia deeply regrets the ongoing unrest in Syria.

The Armenian NA leader, speaking on Armenian-Syrian parliamentary collaboration, said the Armenian MPs regularly visit Syria and provide detailed information to him regarding the situation on the ground.

Galust Sahakyan added that one of the reasons for the absence of a full condemnation of the Armenian Genocide and other genocides is the fact that wars and several other phenomena with the characteristics of genocide still exist.

Al-Laham, for his part, specifically stated: “We are grateful [to Armenia] for being at our side, assisting us. Please convey Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s thanks to the President of Armenia, Serzh Sargsyan.”

The Syrian parliament leader also invited Sahakyan to his country.

news.am

Syria has warned Qatar of a “harsh response” after Doha threatened that it may intervene militarily in the Arab country.

Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal al-Mekdad made the remarks in response to comments by Qatari Foreign Minister Khalid al-Attiyah, on Thursday.

“If Qatar carries out its threat to militarily intervene in Syria, then we will consider this a direct aggression … Our response will be very harsh,” Mekdad was quoted by the Lebanon-based al-Mayadeen television as saying.

On Wednesday, the Qatari foreign minister said his country would consider launching a military intervention against the Syrian government “with our Saudi and Turkish brothers.”

“If a military intervention will protect the Syrian people from the brutality of the regime, we will do it,” Attiyah said.

However, Attiyah added that Doha preferred political dialog from a “position of strength.”

The remarks by Qatar comes as Doha, and a number of its Arab neighbors, namely Saudi Arabia and Turkey, and their Western allies, have been angered by recent advances made by the Syrian army against Daesh, as well as airstrikes carried out by Russia, which have been targeting terrorist positions in the country since late last month.

On October 19, different militant groups fighting Damascus admitted that they had received supplies from countries opposing Syria, including the US, via neighboring Turkey as recently as October 16.

Syria has been embatteled in a civil war since March 2011, which has claimed the lives of more than 250,000 people so far.

albawaba.com

Since early Thursday morning, Russian combat jets have been taking off from this base in western Syria, heading out for more of the heavy bombing runs that have allowed Moscow once again to portray itself as a major global player capable of projecting military power far from its borders.

The Russian Defense Ministry flew Moscow-based reporters to the air base overnight, giving international news organizations their first inside look at its operations here.

The trip to the Syrian base was organized Wednesday, the same day the Kremlin announced that Syrian President Bashar Assad had come to Moscow and met with President Vladimir Putin. Assad’s visit on Tuesday was his first known trip abroad since war broke out in 2011 and raised intense speculation about the two leaders’ motives.

In a sign that a diplomatic push is underway, Russia also announced Wednesday that Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry would meet Friday in Vienna. They will be joined by their counterparts from Saudi Arabia and Turkey, both of which are firm Assad critics.

Russia has been conducting daily airstrikes in Syria since Sept. 30 to back a Syrian government offensive. Moscow says it is targeting militants, especially from the Islamic State group and other extremist organizations. The United States and others have criticized the strikes, which they say are aimed primarily at groups fighting Assad’s forces and likely only to fan the violence.

On Thursday, dozens of jets could be seen parked around the Hemeimeem base, located near the coastal city of Latakia. The large base is protected by air defense systems, which could be seen deployed around its edges.

Russian servicemen, who wear crisp desert-style uniforms, have been barred from talking to the journalists.

In launching the air campaign, Putin certainly realized that it would not change the course of the war and help Assad’s forces win. His apparent aims were to show all of the players that they would not be able to unseat Assad by force and to help cement the Syrian government’s grip on the territory it still controls.

The greater objective, however, seemed to have been to foster political talks that could preserve the Syrian state and allow Moscow to protect its interests in the region.

One of Putin’s other goals with the Syrian military intervention has been to bring Moscow and Washington together for a security dialogue in which Russia would be treated as an equal. The hope is that this would go a long way toward improving ties and ending the Western isolation that resulted from the Ukraine crisis.

ap.org

The Kurdistan Regional Government has sent 620 wounded Peshmerga abroad to receive medical treatment, a Peshmerga official has revealed.

Head of the Health Department of the Peshmerga Ministry Mohsin Mohammed told BasNews that a total of 98 Peshmerga have been treated for free in Jordan, India, United Arab Emirates, Iran, Turkey and Germany.

Mohammed said that 60 more Peshmerga are now waiting to be sent abroad.

“Luxembourg, Czech Republic, France, Georgia and Hungary have shown willingness to provide medical treatment for the Peshmerga,” Mohammed said. “But we are waiting for their final decision.”

BasNews has learned that 13 injured Peshmerga are scheduled to travel to India soon. Tthe Indian government will cover the costs of their care.

Since the start of the war against Islamic State in northern Iraq in mid-2014, up to 1,500 Kurdish Peshmerga have been killed with over 5,000 injured.

basnews.com

Al-Qaeda’s black flag is flying over several official buildings in Yemen’s second city Aden as jihadists make inroads in the absence of state authority and with the country mired in conflict.

In Tawahi, the flag has been hoisted over the police station and is flown on cars ferrying bearded men across one of the largest districts of the port city, residents say.

“Armed men of Al-Qaeda control our whole district, even if there are only a few dozen of them,” said Raefat, a 32-year-old employee of Yemeni radio and television.

“It’s no surprise given there’s no state or government,” he said.

With the capital Sanaa under the control of Shiite Huthi rebels for the past year, the exiled government returned to Aden as its “provisional capital” in September, only to take flight again within weeks.

Prime Minister Khaled Bahah and his team returned to Riyadh after a deadly October 6 attack claimed by the Islamic State jihadist group on an Aden hotel that was being used to house the government.

A government security official told AFP that the jihadists are active in several areas “like Crater, Khor Maksar and Brigua, where their presence is growing stronger by the day”.

The official, declining to be named, said he “fears the city will fall under their total control in the absence of the state”.

Bahah’s departure was a setback for government forces and the Saudi-led Arab coalition supporting them that had recaptured Aden from the Huthis and their allies in July.

Three months later, hundreds of young gunmen now control most public buildings in the city, according to residents, contacted from Sanaa.

They claim allegiance to the pro-government “Popular Resistance”, a loose coalition of former regular army soldiers, tribal militias, Islamists and southern secessionists.

The coalition has battled against the Iran-backed Huthis but without necessarily pledging loyalty to President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi, also exiled in Saudi Arabia.

– Fear of masked gunmen –

Aden police chief General Mohamed Mussaed says his men are “cooperating with our Popular Resistance brothers to resolve the security problem and restore police posts… a big challenge”.

But Aden residents say they fear the masked gunmen who roam the streets, especially after assailants on motorbikes gunned down at least six people, with Yemen’s Al-Qaeda franchise the prime suspect.

“We are counting on the cooperation of the youth of the Popular Resistance to restore security,” said the city’s police chief.

While Badi has called for such irregular forces to be integrated into the army, impoverished Yemen in the thick of a conflict which has cost about 4,500 civilian lives since March does not have the financial resources for such an operation.

“These armed men claim to be part of the Popular Resistance but nobody knows what group they belong to,” protested Majed Ahmed, a resident of Dar Saad, another Aden district where Al-Qaeda’s flag flutters over a disused police post.

To finance their operations, Al-Qaeda fighters have seized $6 million worth of diesel from a local port and sold it on the city’s black market, according to an Aden refinery official.

Elsewhere in southern Yemen, Al-Qaeda has had control of Mukalla, Yemen’s third largest port and capital of Hadramawt province, since April.

At the start of October, its fighters occupied an administrative complex in Zinjibar, capital of Abyan, one of five southern provinces recaptured from the Huthis.

Nineteen mass graves containing 365 bodies of Islamic State (IS) militants were found in Iraq on Wednesday, officials said.

The troops found the mass graves in al-Asri district in the town of Baiji, the northern central province of Salahudin, Xinhua cited froim a military statement statement.

Baiji is some 200 km north of Iraqi capital of Baghdad.

The statement did not say how long the bodies have been buried or how they were all identified as IS militants.

On Tuesday, a Salahudin provincial security source said troops drove out IS militants from Baiji after days of fierce battles. This came after the earlier capture of Iraq’s largest oil refinery near Baiji and the town of Seiniyah, some 10 km west of Baiji.

The battles in Salahudin province are part of the second phase of major offensive announced earlier by Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, aimed at freeing towns seized by the IS group since June 2014 in the northern part of Salahudin province.

Salahudin, a predominantly Sunni province with its capital of Tikrit, some 170 km north of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, is the hometown of former president Saddam Hussein.

Iran will not work to keep Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad in power “forever”, Iran’s deputy foreign minister said during a trip to Britain on Wednesday, according to the AFP news agency.

It was the first visit by an Iranian delegation to Britain since the two countries re-opened their embassies in London and Tehran due to a thaw in relations.

While Iran has “no fighting force, as such” in Syria, Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian claimed Tehran had increased military advisors to help Assad prevail against a range of opposing forces in a civil war that has that has killed 240,000 and displaced millions.

“In any political process the role played by Bashar Al-Assad will be important,” Hossein Amir-Abdollahian was quoted as having told the Guardian newspaper.

“We are not working for Assad to stay in power forever as president. But we are very cognizant of his role in the fight against terrorism and the national unity of that country,” he added.

“The people of Syria will make the final decision – and whatever decision they take, we will endorse.”

Iran is a key ally of Assad that has stood by him since an uprising against his regime broke out in 2011, but has played down the extent of its on-the-ground support.

Near the start of the Syrian civil war, it was reported that Iran’s former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad personally sanctioned the dispatch of officers from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards to Syria to fight alongside Assad’s troops.

But Amir-Abdollahian denied earlier this week, as he did in the Guardian interview, that his country had fighters on the ground in the Syrian conflict, though he did say Iran would step up its military support for the Syrian regime in the form of advice on fighting terrorism.

Iran’s regional rival Saudi Arabia, which supports rebel groups trying to oust Assad in Syria, this week accused Iran of “meddling” in the region, including in Yemen where Tehran is accused of backing Houthi rebels that overran parts of the country.

Amir-Abdollahian hit back at the criticism from Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister Adel al-Jubeir.

“Considering the fact that for seven months Saudi Arabia has been attempting to occupy Yemen using force, when it comes to Syria they are not in a position to make such comments,” Amir-Abdollahian said, according to AFP.

“I recommend that [Jubeir] instead of passing the buck considers cooperation and constructive behavior in the region.”

Amir-Abdollahian held talks with British foreign minister Philip Hammond and his deputy Tobias Ellwood on Wednesday.

Ellwood wrote on Twitter that the three had “discussed our positions” on Syria and Islamic State militants who have brutally carved out regions of control in Syria and Iraq.

Kurdish-led authorities in northern Syria have declared a new province including a town on the border with Turkey captured from Islamic State in June, a Kurdish official said on Wednesday, formalising Kurdish control over the border area.

The Syrian Kurdish YPG militia captured the town of Tel Abyad with the help of U.S.-led air strikes. The new administrative province, or canton, is the fourth declared by the Kurdish administration in northern Syria.

“It has been officially announced as a canton,” said Delil Osman, a media official in the Kurdish-led administration. He was speaking via Skype, and did not say when the announcement was made.

With the debate in Washington about the success or failure of American strategy in Syria and Iraq continuing and presidential campaigns running at full steam, there has been no shortage of competing suggestions about how the United States must respond to Russia’s intervention in Syria’s civil war. These suggestions range from reducing America’s involvement in the ongoing conflict to escalating U.S. military efforts in response to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s provocation.

Many of these proposals sound muscular but remain vague. It is not clear, for example, what the pronouncement that the United States “must reestablish its presence” means operationally. Adding details dilutes the tough-sounding talk or raises questions about realism. Countering Putin in the Middle East comes down to advising neighboring countries to prevent Russian overflights or sanctioning Russian defense companies — which the United States has been doing since Russia’s intervention in Ukraine. Turning to another suggestion, it is not clear how the United States might build up a “regional army” to destroy the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and bring down Syrian President Bashar Assad or who in the region would be inclined to join such an army. Thus far, America’s efforts to train and equip a limited number of fighters have turned into an expensive embarrassment.

This is not to say that America’s current course of action is based upon a realistic assessment of the situation. Right now, Russia may not be impressed by President Obama’s offer to work with Putin only when Russia drops its support for Assad. If Russia’s military intervention turned into a costly quagmire, as its invasion of Afghanistan did 30 years ago, Moscow could come to see things differently, but that is not the situation now.

Without getting distracted by speculation about Putin’s psychology or long-range strategy, it is clear that Russia does not want to see its long-time ally in Damascus collapse. Russia wants to ensure the survival of the Assad regime, its last remaining partner in the Middle East, or at the very least, a pro-Russian successor that will guarantee its continued possession of Russia’s only naval base on the Mediterranean.

That means defending Damascus and the Syrian government’s remaining enclave in the western part of the country, which, in turn, means going after the adjacent rebel forces. These include both al Qaeda’s affiliate, Jabhat al-Nusra, and what remains of the more-secular forces backed by the West. This goal explains the immediate focus of Russia’s airstrikes. ISIS is concentrated in eastern Syria and thus a more distant threat, although the presence of a reported contingent of 2,500 Muslims from Chechnya and the Caucasus in the ranks of ISIS has to worry Moscow and provides another motive for why Russia is not content to let the United States and allies deal with Syria’s insurgents. Russian participation in ISIS’s destruction should not be unwelcome, even though policy and politics require American officials to insist that the United States and Russia are not cooperating.

Russia’s intervention in Syria distracts world attention from Ukraine and ordinary Russians from their own economic travails in addition to making the United States look foolish. Some Russians may welcome new military engagements abroad as validation of Russian power, but putting Russian soldiers — even as volunteers — on the ground in Syria runs risks. And although Russia’s involvement in Syria is being portrayed domestically as an expression of Deus vult (“God wills it,” the battle cry of the First Crusade in the 11th century), Russia probably would want to avoid the consequences of what could be portrayed as a Russian religious war against all Sunnis.

The United States and its allies have additional objectives, which complicates strategy. For now, ISIS’s rapid expansion in 2014, its well-advertised atrocities, and fear of foreign fighters returning home have made its destruction the politically acceptable priority — the coalition is bombing ISIS, not Assad. But ISIS’s enemies in the West, along with Turkey, Jordan and the Gulf monarchies, also want Assad out and replaced by a more inclusive government that is capable of drawing in the majority of Sunnis who might otherwise end up in ISIS’s camp.

The fact that no suitable replacement for Assad has yet emerged does not lessen Western hostility toward his regime. Western powers definitely want to prevent the Syrian regime, supported by Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, from destroying the anti-Assad forces. Even though these forces include undesirable extremist elements, they keep Assad weak and contained. At the same time, the West does not want Assad’s departure to be followed by the kind of chaos that has continued long after Muammar Gaddafi’s removal from power in Libya. Nor does it want to see jihadists slaughter Assad’s Alawite and Christian supporters — infidels, in the eyes of Sunni fanatics.

Coalitions come with constraints. There is little international support for expanding the coalition’s campaign beyond attacking ISIS. Broadening the coalition’s mission or escalating the conflict by introducing ground combat forces might reassure some in the region of American resolve, but it could make some participants drop out. The United States could go it alone or with a handful of allies, but doing so also jeopardizes legitimacy and could erode already tenuous domestic support.

Fears of the terrorist threat posed by returning foreign fighters, who now make up a sizable portion of ISIS’s ranks, and the difficulties of dealing with the deluge of refugees pouring out of the region, further complicate strategic calculations. The refugee crisis is shaking the European Union to its core.

So what is to be done? Here are five options:

1. Confrontation. Denunciations by themselves don’t work. Bluffs are not credible. No one proposes going to war with Russia; Syria is not worth it. Still, in the eyes of many, a forceful American response must include boots on the ground. Combining some of the more ambitious proposals would mean the deployment of up to 25,000 American troops to Iraq (assuming Iraq allows this) and sending another 10,000 or more to Syria to lead a larger allied regional army to destroy ISIS. (American military commanders warn that American combat troops, while effective in battle, would still face a long-term pacification problem as seen a decade earlier in Afghanistan and Iraq.) More realistic steps could include declaring no-fly zones off-limits to Syrian government or Russian airstrikes — an idea considered before Russia’s direct intervention — and manning them with American forces to discourage Russia from testing American resolve.

The United States could also openly deploy American ground forces — as opposed to covert operatives — to assist secular rebels in Syria, but despite some progress, it is still not certain that independent, viable and effective secular rebel formations can be built up. The United States could exploit Europe’s unhappiness with Russian intervention to further increase targeted economic sanctions already imposed in response to Russia’s moves in Ukraine. Thus far, these have not altered Russian behavior, although they may weaken Russia in the long run by further undermining its economy, which is already hemorrhaging due to the collapse of oil prices.

2. An international peace conference. This option seems dead on arrival. Although the United States wants Assad out immediately, it might accept an overall settlement resulting in his eventual departure and his replacement by a new government that is able to reconcile with the rebels and restore its authority throughout Syrian national territory. In July at the Aspen Security Conference, a citadel of America’s security establishment, organizers tabled the questions of “whether the … the pre-revolutionary Assad regime in Syria … [was] more in line with American interests and whether, as a consequence, the best outcome now is as close to the status quo ante as possible.” But Aspen is not Aleppo. For Syrians, the conflict has gone beyond regime change — it is now almost entirely sectarian and existential. Even if Assad departs, the regime’s Alawite and Christian stalwarts are unlikely to lay down their arms. It is difficult to imagine Jabhat al-Nusra and other Islamist rebels abandoning their struggle against infidel foes. And ISIS will remain outside any agreement.

3. An incremental cease-fire. Instead of a grand war-ending agreement, the United States could support a series of local cease-fires. Putting pre-2011 Syria back together is next to impossible for now. This option would mean accepting de facto partition of Syria into a series of cantons that leave the armed parties in place. Assad would get to stay and rule a miniature state in the western part of the country and Damascus: his Republika Syrianska. The rebels, including al Qaeda’s local affiliate, would get to hold the territory they currently command with the choice of keeping their little emirate or remaining the target of Russian or coalition bombing.

Local cease-fires, withdrawals and exchanges of territory would be negotiated individually. As local agreements are reached, international forces, which might include both Russian and American observers, would help to keep peace on the perimeters. Participating entities would receive generous aid. Military action against ISIS by both coalition and Russian aircraft would continue. However, there should be no illusions: The fighting will continue in many areas, and there will be continued terrorist attacks. But local accommodations that allow reconstruction and commerce and that slow the flow of refugees might emerge in other localities.

4. Afghanistan redux. ISIS has survived coalition bombing for more than a year — that’s more than 12,000 airstrikes. It may be weakened, but it has not been defeated. Anti-Assad rebels now facing Russian bombing will suffer some setbacks but also may be able to adapt and remain effective. Even if Russia is able to drive back or scatter the rebels pressing on the remaining Syrian government-controlled territory, it will face a continuing insurgency, always the more difficult task. Like Syria, Russia is willing to use its military power indiscriminately, but that comes with a cost and does not always work.

After nearly four years of ruthless bombing by the regime and assistance on the ground from Hezbollah and Iranian-backed militias and Iranian advisers, Assad is still unable to defeat the insurgents. While it cannot halt Russia’s bombing, the United States could increase its support for rebel forces other than ISIS by lowering its strict vetting, which thus far has limited American support. The Gulf monarchies that now support the rebels may be persuaded to do even more. The aim would be simply to put more weapons and more ammunition into rebel hands, accepting that some of these supplies may end up in jihadist possession — hopefully not ISIS, which, in this option, would remain the exclusive target of the coalition’s bombing campaign.

5. Containment. This option starts with the premise that the United States has limited objectives in Syria and Iraq and limited ability to shape events in these two countries without making a substantial military commitment — one that may turn out to be far greater than proponents of more-ambitious efforts admit. For now, there is no disagreement:  American investment increases or American objectives are scaled back. The question is whether the American public, which now supports the bombing campaign as long as there are no U.S. casualties, will support (and continue to support) going to war and all that entails. That does not appear to be the case, a fact that critics of Washington’s current caution ignore. Under this option, the United States would continue its bombing campaign since ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra are viewed as a direct threat to American interests, and it would continue U.S. support for Kurdish fighters defending their territory against ISIL.

However, the United States would not deploy ground forces, set up safe havens or no-fly zones, significantly increase its support for the other Syrian rebels, or make major investments in other military efforts to bring down Assad. Instead, the United States would pursue what can be described as a prudent course of action, limiting its involvement in a civil war it cannot resolve but can only make worse. America’s primary mission would be to assist neighboring allies in containing the conflict and defending themselves, especially Jordan and Saudi Arabia. ISIS’s black flag flying over Mecca would guarantee a long-lasting clash of civilizations. Helping the neighbors also means devoting more resources to the refugees. This is close to current U.S. policy.

Today’s politicians and tomorrow’s historians will debate whether, as some allege, America’s timidity and inaction allowed the current mess and created the vacuum that Russia has now entered. That does not tell us what America should do now.

There may be other options or preferable variations of these. Since these options are not mutually exclusive, perhaps some combination would make more sense. The purpose of laying them out is to encourage rational thinking based upon realistic presumptions, not media or campaign-driven hype. Right now, the situation in Syria presents a grim picture. Syria must be seen as a long-term problem that will resist any short-term solution, but circumstances will change and opportunities may arise that allow more promising interventions. America can then act wisely in its own national interest.

thehill.com