• Last Monday President Obama reiterated that Syrian use of chemical weapons would cross a US red line. Today brings multiple reports of the Syrian military preparing for their use. The government claims to have retaken two of Damascus’ suburbs, but the consensus certainly seems to be that the tide is turning against the Assad regime. 
• Marc Lynch worries about how the international community is handling Syrian refugees. 
• Jay Ulfelder on Star Wars, “used futures,” and institutional design, the extension of that analogy to Egypt’s constitution, and more on the “forecasting wars.” That’s a lot of Dart-Throwing Chimp links, but I can’t resist the temporal pastiche.
• Dan Drezner kinda-sorta defends Kathleen T. McFarland… with the tyranny of low expectations.

And also:

• A nice piece by Erik Voeten contextualizing the implications of the Senate rejection of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. And by “contextualizes” I mean places it within the IR literature. Peter Sprio, for his part, describes it as a victory for the sovereignists and discusses next steps.
• If you haven’t read it, you really should look at Brian Rathbun’s piece (here at the Duck) on the trajectory of academic international-relations scholarship. I’m disappointed at the lack of discussion. 
• Also, if you’re not reading the Disorder of Things’ symposium on Open Access… then you should be.  
• I forgot to mention that I was on a MuggleNet Academia Podcast courtesy of the awesome John Granger.
• BLTN: Taylor Favrel examines the future of PRC foreign policy.
• I hope to have a status report on the OAISes later today. 

(Image by William Kevin Petty)