REAL-WORLD INSIGHTS

Published: Sep 06 , 2013
Author: Stephen White

In the week when the UK Government failed to secure the agreement of Parliament to take military action against the use of chemical weapons in Syria, I read about an interesting phenomenon which might help explain this failure, and which should worry President Obama who remarkably has gone for the same high-risk strategy, in his case asking Congress before taking military action.

Published: Sep 22 , 2012
Author: Stephen White

Within the last few days the Obama administration have made it clear that they consider the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian Assad regime on their own civilians to be a red line. What they mean is that if the Syrian government uses chemical weapons, they will have crossed the red line, diplomacy will have come to an end, and military action will follow. Similarly, in neighbouring Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu has chided the US administration for not setting a red line on the subject of the Iranian development of nuclear weapons....