Sanctions are much in demand these days as a tool of American foreign policy.
Don’t Try to Imitate the Russians in Syria (Paul Pillar)
The Washington Post’s deputy editorial page editor Jackson Diehl says President Obama ought to emulate Vladimir Putin in Syria. Yet nothing in Diehl’s column considers exactly where U.S. interests do and do not lie in Syria. They do not lie with any particular political coloration of a future regime in Damascus. They do not rest on overthrowing the Assads; somehow U.S. interests have survived even though the Assads, father and son, have been in power for 46 years.
Politico: After Rand Paul meeting, Russian lawmakers agree to Washington visit
Sen. Rand Paul, who has supported President Donald Trump’s effort to improve relations with Russia, announced Monday that Russian lawmakers have agreed to visit the U.S. Capitol.
Is Putin Really a Fascist? (Paul Robinson)
In 1990 the New York Times admitted that Walter Duranty’s reporting was some of the worst it had ever printed. Given what the newspaper is publishing nowadays, Duranty is facing some stiff competition.
Hannah Rosenthal: The New York Times Whitewashes Ukrainian Neo-Nazis
The most unfortunate thing about the New York Times Ukraine article is how it exposes the lax standards with which Western media has treated the disturbing reality in the country.
Who Is Making American Foreign Policy—the President or the War Party? (Stephen F. Cohen)
Nation Contributing Editor Stephen F. Cohen and John Batchelor continue their weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War. (Previous installments are at TheNation.com.) The main focus of Tuesday night’s conversation is Syria, the crisis in Ukraine, and Russia’s parliamentary elections.
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: Dawn of a new Armageddon
The world has entered an unimaginably deadly new arms race, with no rules of the road and no scheduled arms control talks for these new weapons systems. In three years, New START, the US-Russia agreement that limits nuclear arsenals, is set to lapse, removing the last agreed restraint on arsenal sizes.
Jimmy Carter: A First Step for Syria? Stop the Killing
If this cease-fire is to last, the United States and Russia must find ways to work beyond the lack of trust that undermined the previous cease-fire in February.
Vladimir Goldstein: Hidden in Plain View in Belgrade
Why did NATO attack Yugoslavia in 1999, killing perhaps as many as 2,500 civilians? Here are some possible answers as Vladimir Golstein reflects back on that ugly episode.
Ukraine, Rebels Agree to Pull Back Troops, Weapons (AP)
Representatives of Ukraine and separatist rebels agreed Wednesday to pull back troops and weapons from several areas in eastern Ukraine in an attempt to shore up a fragile peace agreement
FAIR: The Utility of the RussiaGate Conspiracy
New McCarthyism allows corporate media to tighten grip, Democrats to ignore their own failings
Hillary Clinton Meets With Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko (Daily Mail)
Hillary Clinton promised Ukraine’s Petro Poroshenko Monday that she would stand with the country against ‘Russian aggression’.
VIDEO: Rachel Maddow: All Russia. All The Time.
Is Rachel Maddow aware there is other news happening?
Russia denies carrying out air strike on UN aid convoy near Aleppo labelled an ‘attack on humanity’ (The Independent)
UN humanitarian chief Stephen O’Brien said all warring parties had received notification of the convoy, which was carrying aid for about 78,000 people, warning that if the volunteers and aid workers were deliberately targeted “it would amount to a war crime.”
FT: US sanctions proposals shrugged off in Russia
US senators’ proposals for punishing new sanctions against Russia have met a muted response in Moscow, where investors are shrugging off fears that the new measures could prompt a repeat of April’s market sell-off.
Bloomberg News Reporter Asks Hillary Clinton: Was Russian Behind The NY-NJ Bomb Scare?
Bloomberg News reporter Jennifer Epstein asked Hillary Clinton on Monday: Are you concerned that this weekend’s attack — or, potential incidents in the coming weeks — might be an attempt by ISIS, or ISIS sympathizers, or any other group, maybe Russian, to influence the presidential race in some way, and presumably to drive votes to Donald Trump?
Sean T. Crowley: NATO ‘Encirclement’ May Be Creating a New Crisis with Russia.
NATO expansion has fueled some of Russia’s worst fears…and impulses.
Washington’s Hawks Push New Cold War (Alastair Crooke)
As a fragile and partial cease-fire in Syria totters, the back story is the political warfare in Washington where powerful hawks seek to escalate both the war in Syria and the New Cold War with Russia, ex-British diplomat Alastair Crooke explains.
Byron York: 12 times Christopher Steele fed Trump-Russia allegations to FBI after the election
Congressional investigators know that Christopher Steele, the former British spy who compiled the Trump dossier on behalf of the Clinton campaign, kept supplying allegations to the FBI after the 2016 election — and even after he was terminated as a source by the bureau for giving confidential information to the media.
With the Syrian cease-fire, the secretary of state takes a parting swipe at Russophobia (Patrick Lawrence)
It has been clear for some years that the policy cliques in Washington have been approaching a decisive limit. It is not merely that the Bush II framework — flouting international law, intervening at will, “pre-emptive” war, “regime change,” “nation-building” and so on — can be carried no further. There is a larger point.