Turkey’s Parliament approved military action against Syria yesterday, though they downplayed it as not a prelude to an invasion or a “war mandate.” But while Syria apologized for cross-border shelling that killed five in Turkey and drew this response, the Turkish military fired over the border for a second day, as the Turkish Prime Minister [...]

I heard LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, the chair of the Democratic National Convention, speak last night in Burbank, and among a fairly mainstream liberal speech that focused heavily on the DREAM Act and the Administration’s granting deferred action status for DREAM-eligible undocumenteds, he accused the Romney-Ryan campaign of “saber-rattling on Syria.” This came one day [...]

As fighting continues in Aleppo, with 20,000 Syrian regime troops preparing a final assault, a confusing set of reports indicates that the Prime Minister has defected to Jordan. A statement read on the al-Jazeera Arabic news channel that was attributed to Prime Minister Riyad al-Hijab said he had resigned to protest his government’s harsh tactics [...]

Observers are bracing for what many believe could be a massacre in the Syrian city of Aleppo, the biggest by population in the country. Regime war planes have already bombed the city where rebels have assembled in an attempt to take and hold ground. Now artillery shelling is taking place, according to the rebels, and [...]

Yesterday’s attack on the seat of power in Syria (which was not, as initially reported, a suicide attack but a remote-controlled bomb, which actually requires more pre-planning) has completely changed the dynamic in that country. Fighting continues in the neighborhoods surrounding Damascus, the capital, including in patches close to government buildings and the presidential palace. [...]

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s continued survival is predicated on their Russian patrons to a large extent. So this shift from Moscow is really a crushing blow: Russia will cease deliveries of arms and fighter planes to Syria until the situation in the country stabilises, an official said yesterday, a move that would ratchet up pressure [...]

Brigadier General Manaf Tlass, a commander of the Republican Guard in Syria and a close confidant of President Bashar al-Assad, has defected to Turkey, French foreign minister Laurent Fabius confirmed today. The number of high-ranking officers quitting Mr. Assad’s forces has increased markedly in recent days as violence has mounted. But the departure of General [...]

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has essentially declared a civil war in a meeting with his new cabinet, which was broadcast on state-run TV. He did this as fighting raged just outside of the capital of Damascus, and as gunmen stormed a pro-government TV channel, killing seven. It’s hard not to agree with Assad that we [...]

The world has been generally deadlocked over Syria. The UN Security Council cannot muster any kind of veto-proof majority for any action, nobody wants to engage in an intervention, and meanwhile the situation in the country has devolved into civil war. So we can view this as a potential step forward, albeit with one excruciating [...]

For months, protesters have peacefully registered their discontent in Syria, and tens of thousands of them have been mowed down in the streets for their trouble. Now, while the peaceful protests continue, we’re finally seeing the end of that phase of the uprising, and the beginning of the civil war. After Bashar al-Assad preposterously denied [...]

Syria has helpfully asked the UN for more monitors – but no more than 250 in a country of over 20 million – to observe the cease-fire taking place in the embattled country. They even offered their own air support, so no need for independent aircraft to aid mobility for the observers! I think today’s [...]