Are we headed to war in Syria? Â
- The media seems to be going all in on the chemical weapons “red line” justification.
- How close are we to moving to implement a no-fly zone?
- Hezbollah is the real Red Line.
- Drezner: Â realism trumps liberalism again.
- Behind yesterday’s UN Syrian Casualty Count.
- Sunni clerics call for jihad against Assad and Egyptian government says Egyptians have freedom to travel to Syria if they’d like.
Meanwhile:
- Did Erdogan blink?
- How the protests in Taksim Square have derailed Erdogan’s plans to transform Turkey into a presidential system.
This week in contested academic politics…
- AAUP asks who controls intellectual property rights in MOOCs?
- Everyone really does hate accrediting agencies.
- Does being an $%#@hole count against you in a tenure decision? Â Do we really have to ask this?
Jon Western has spent the last fifteen years teaching IR in liberal arts colleges at Mount Holyoke College and the Five Colleges in western Massachusetts. He has an eclectic range of intellectual interests but often writes on international security, U.S. foreign policy, military intervention, and human rights. He occasionally shares his thoughts about professional life in liberal arts colleges. In his spare time he coaches middle school soccer, mentors the local high school robotics team, skis, and sails.
- Jon Westernhttps://www.duckofminerva.com/author/jwestern
- Jon Westernhttps://www.duckofminerva.com/author/jwestern
- Jon Westernhttps://www.duckofminerva.com/author/jwestern
- Jon Westernhttps://www.duckofminerva.com/author/jwestern
- Jon Westernhttps://www.duckofminerva.com/author/jwestern
- Jon Westernhttps://www.duckofminerva.com/author/jwestern
Yeah. I’ve noted how psyched the White House must be that they have (1) a red line, (2) that’s been crossed, and (3) isn’t nakedly geo-strategic. Because, you know, the timing of this couldn’t have anything to do with changing assessments of the battlefield balance after Hezbollah’s intervention.
My 15-year-old son’s first question this morning when he heard the linked NPR story was “That doesn’t make sense. We’ve known about chemical weapons for months, why now?” After about a two-second paus he concluded: “ah, Hezbollah.”