Lebanon's new government

After 5 months of deadlock, Lebanon has a new government dominated by Hezbollah and its allies. Paul Salem of Carnegie Middle East Centre has some good analysis here.

Obama sticks by Assad, for now

With the situation in Syria getting worse by the day and Bashar al-Assad sanctioning an all out military assault on his own people, one can't help but wonder when the US will begin to take a much stronger line with the Assad regime. As Tony Badran points out on the Foreign Policy blog, "Assad's brutality has already cost him critical relations with three countries that have been instrumental in his efforts to rehabilitate himself in the world: France, Qatar, and Turkey". Even Israel's Defence Minister Ehud Barak, has stated on record that Assad "has lost his legitimacy" - though I still suspect the Israelis would still prefer the devil they know to protect their northern border.

But so far Washington's position has remained unchanged, i.e., limited sanctions and calls for reform. For the Obama administration, already struggling with multiple challenges to its Middle East security structure, the consequences of the Assad regime falling and the regional turmoil that would inevitable follow are just too big to contemplate. However, with the level of regime brutality escalating by the day, this position is becoming increasingly untenable. The line from Washington has been that it has no leverage. This is not entirely true. For a start, the US could withdraw its Ambassador in Damascus and declare the Syrian regime illegitimate. This would have a significant impact in sending a strong message to the protesters, the international community and the regime. Strong US leadership would result in more galvanised international action.

Strong US leadership in confronting the Assad regime has worked in the past. International pressure led by the US in 2005 resulted in UN Security Council Resolution 1559, which forced the Syrians to pull out of Lebanon . The circumstances, of course, were different and the regime was facing external rather than internal challenges to its rule. But it did demonstrate one thing: that the threat of force is the only thing that the Assad clan understands (Syria was worried that it would become the next target after Iraq for the pro-Israel neocons in Washington). This is not a call for military intervention, but rather a clearer and consistent US strategy in the region, which has been badly lacking since the start of the Arab uprisings.