Dave Patterson: Where the Ukraine Ceasefire Negotiations Stand

From the ashes sometimes rises a glimmer of hope. Since the unfortunate dust-up in the Oval Office between President Trump and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, there has been progress – albeit modest – in achieving a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine. And what appeared to be an acrimonious and doomed relationship between DC and Kyiv has been salvaged, possibly even improved beyond what many thought possible.

Brendan O'Neill: Biden’s creeping betrayal of Israel

Sacrificing an ally to appease the activist class? That’s low, Joe.

‘Just call for a ceasefire…’ It was the offhand nature of Joe Biden’s haughty instruction to Israel this week, the insouciance of it, that felt most jarring. Just call for a ceasefire, he told ‘the Israelis’, like it was no big deal. Like it’s an easy thing to do to lay down arms against an army of racist terrorists that has already slain a thousand of your citizens and promises to slay thousands more. Like it’s a simple decision to pause a war for your very survival against a medieval movement that was founded with the express intention of wiping you from the face of the Earth. ‘Relax, stop fighting, it will be fine’, Biden was essentially saying, taking his geopolitical idiocy to dizzying new heights.

Ron Smith: What now for Syria?

As widely predicted (including by me, in a 17 April blog), the United Nations cease-fire has become a tragic mockery.  There is a growing band of international monitors but no cease-fire to monitor.  The only function for this gallant band is to testify to continuing atrocity.  This is not unimportant.  It provided for an independent account of what happened at Houla a few days ago but it wasn’t why they were sent.  To leave the monitors in position is to persist in a wilful denial of what is happening in Syria and it leaves persons, who are in a weak position to defend themselves, at considerable risk.  

Similarly, there is no prospect of success for the associated UN ‘peace plan’.  Manifestly, heavy weapons continue to be used, humanitarian assistance is not being provided and the ‘legitimate aspirations of the Syrian people’ are not being addressed.

Ron Smith: The Future of Syria

There is an overwhelming suspension of disbelief in the bulk of public comment on what is presently happening in Syria. We have now had more than twelve months of political action from the overwhelming non-Alawite population, which has been countered with increasing ferocity by government forces, using heavy weaponry. The insurgents have responded with progressively increasing violence themselves and despite heavy civilian losses (perhaps up to 15,000 over the 12 month period), there is no sign that they will give up.

In this context it must be asked, what is the point of the of the much-trumpeted United Nations cease-fire initiative, apart from a need to be seen to be ‘doing something’? Already, for reasons that are obvious, the cease-fire is failing.