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Turkey To America: Step Up In Syria

May 15, 2013  •  U.S. News & World Report

This week, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan arrives in Washington for a much publicized state visit. The Turkish leader won't simply be making a courtesy call, however. His U.S. mission is largely aimed at achieving one purpose: goading the Obama administration into taking greater action on Syria.

That's something of a tall order. Since the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in March of 2011, the United States has steadfastly avoided joining the fray – or even crafting a coherent strategy toward the conflict taking place between Syrian dictator Bashar Assad and his own people. This inaction has made the White House the object of withering criticism at home and abroad, but to little avail (at least so far).

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Boston Bombing's Russian Roots

May 14, 2013  •  Washington Times

Ever since last month's bombings at the Boston Marathon, speculation has abounded as to what led the perpetrators — suspected to be ethnic Chechens 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his 19-year-old brother, Dzhokhar — to carry out the most significant act of terrorism on U.S. soil since Sept. 11, 2001. By all accounts, both were largely homegrown radicals who received inspiration, and perhaps even dangerous instruction, from jihadist elements in the United States and abroad. The roots of the Tsarnaevs' militancy can be traced back at least in part to Russia's own troubled "war on terrorism" — a struggle that Moscow, more than two decades after the Soviet collapse, is in real danger of losing.

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Redrawing Syria's Red Line

May 1, 2013  •  USA Today

For better or worse, governments tend to be defined by their handling of foreign crises. Weather one well, and you project an image of strong, principled leadership, much like the way Margaret Thatcher's government managed its dispute with Argentina over the Falkland Islands. Dither or delay, and you telegraph an air of provocative weakness. (Think Jimmy Carter and Iran.) By that yardstick, the Obama Administration is failing badly, and on no issue more than Syria.

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Overlooked Middle East Crises

April 23, 2013  •  Washington Times

These days, American policy toward the Middle East tends to be dominated by two regional crises. The first is the long-running showdown with Iran over its nuclear program. Despite mounting Western financial pressure, the Islamic republic shows no signs of changing course. To the contrary, Iran's leaders have defiantly tightened their fiscal belts and redoubled their efforts to cross the nuclear Rubicon. Meanwhile, negotiations between Tehran and the West have concluded predictably, without any tangible progress on bringing the Iranian regime's nuclear ambitions to heel. The second is the 2-year-old civil war in Syria. Since March 2011, with the help of Russia and Iran, the regime of Bashar Assad in Damascus has waged a bloody war against its own people. The human toll has been immense: Some 70,000 people have been killed in the fighting, and more than 1.2 million others have fled Syria for Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey and elsewhere. Official Washington, meanwhile, still lacks anything resembling a coherent strategy for addressing the disorder. Left largely unnoticed are four other significant strategic trends in the region.

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Tehran Turns Up The Heat (On Azerbaijan)

April 10, 2013  •  Forbes.com

With international pressure over its nuclear program mounting, and the recent collapse of its latest round of negotiations with the West, this might seem like a strange time for Iran to pick a fight with its neighbors. Yet on at least one front, that is exactly what it appears to be doing. Recent days have seen a marked downturn in the already-troubled relationship between the Islamic Republic and Azerbaijan, its neighbor to the northwest.

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Books by Ilan Berman