Former UK Ambassador to Lebanon, Tom Fletcher, and BBC war correspondent, Paul Wood, participated in a conversation on Syria moderated by Future of Diplomacy Project Executive Director, Cathryn Clüver, titled “Tolerating the Intolerable: Syria Four Years On” on September 30. Both speakers gave a highly variegated and in-depth response of the major and corollary issues at play in the Syrian conflict and beyond, including the difficulty of finding moderate forces on the ground, the dangers of warzone journalism, the migrant crisis, and Russia's strategic interests.

"This moment is about as American as it gets here in the United States. The exemplary release of a Congressional investigation into the Central Intelligence Agency’s brutal interrogation techniques reflects the finest practice of citizen oversight of government executive and security agencies, truly one of the United States’ great gifts to the world; at the same time, the revelations of torture and deception at the highest levels of government reflect the worst practices of police states and authoritarian despots."

In this installment of “Inside the Middle East: Q&A,” Ambassador Robert Ford, former United States Ambassador to Syria from 2011 to 2014 and Algeria from 2006 to 2008, discusses his experiences with the State Department in Iraq and Syria, US strategy in the Syrian Civil War, and Syria's future.

President Obama’s strategy to “degrade and ultimately destroy” ISIS has become the target of heated criticism, not only from partisan opponents but from many of his supporters as well. Categorically ruling out American boots on the ground, while subcontracting the bloody job of house-to-house fighting to the Iraqi military, Free Syrian Army, and Kurdish Peshmerga, can only assure failure, critics argue.

These assessments fall into a familiar trap: assuming that what has been announced is the sum of the matter. Especially for admirers of the diplomatic sleights of hand practiced by Henry Kissinger or Jim Baker, neglecting the obvious when assessing the current strategy is unfair.

Here’s a national-security riddle: How can President Obama provide limited military support on the ground to help “degrade and ultimately destroy” the Islamic State without formally violating his pledge not to send U.S. combat troops? The answer may lie in the legal alchemy known as “Title 50.”

"The debates now taking place about the IS phenomenon and threat focus on who is to blame for allowing it to develop, how widely will IS spread territorially, and how much support does IS enjoy around the region in lands where it does not control territory? All this is important, but the most terrifying aspect of the IS phenomenon is not about the extremist young men who gravitate to its call, but rather about the factors across the Arab region and beyond that allowed it to come into being in the first place — factors that continue to shape our troubled region today."