Carnegie Moscow Center
If the joint efforts of the United States and Russia in Syria are to succeed, they must attain a ceasefire between Bashar al-Assad’s armed forces and the opposition, and discover and destroy all chemical weapons in Syria.
The world watches and waits to hear if the Assad government will give up Syria’s chemical weapons stock.
Russia has submitted a plan for chemical weapons seizure in Syria.
Although Putin’s statements have been seen as flexible rhetoric, Russia’s policy toward Syria has not changed.
The United States will probably continue to limit its presence in global affairs because Barack Obama is committed to a more moderate U.S. role in foreign affairs.
Nuclear nonproliferation will only be successful if the Nuclear Five, especially the United States and Russia, set an example for the rest of the world by fulfilling their pledges to pursue disarmament.
Reports that NATO troops burned copies of the Koran in Afghanistan help boost the Taliban’s recruitment efforts and can be used to support the Taliban’s attempts to portray conflict in Afghanistan as religious rather than political.
Russia lacks the resources for dealing with the situation in Syria and, despite its current support of the Bashar al-Assad government, will likely lose influence in the country regardless of the future political situation.
The European Union’s embargo on Iranian oil supplies is unlikely to be effective in forcing Iran to restart negotiations on its on-going nuclear program.
While Iran has the right to develop nuclear energy, the international community has reason to worry that Iran’s nuclear program is developing technologies that would enable Tehran to build nuclear weapons.