Is Asad Next??
Informed Comment / Juan Cole
20-Aug-2011 (2 comments)

Posted on 08/19/2011 by Juan

President Obama, along with the European Union, called on Thursday for Syrian President Bashar al-Asad to step down. At the same time, the US announced severe economic and financial sanctions against Syria, essentially cutting the Syrian banking system off from access to US banks, and forbidding American citizens and firms from doing business with the Syrian government. Plans are clearly being made to closely identify exactly which state-owned firms control Syria’s small petroleum industry, and to put those under sanctions.

In short, the North Atlantic world took a big step toward making Syria a pariah state, rather like North Korea. What stands in the way of Syria becoming quite that isolated is continued support for Damascus from some Lebanese factions and from Iran, China and Russia

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Rea

For those he killed so far

by Rea on Sat Aug 20, 2011 04:05 PM PDT

.... I wish he'd go.

As far as peace in the ME is concerned, I wish he'd stay.

Secular semi-dictators are still better than the religous ones. 


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vildemose

Qaddafi Rule Collapsing as

by vildemose on Sat Aug 20, 2011 03:53 PM PDT


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