"...Russia has given no indication that it is ready to drop Bashar al-Assad as part of a transition process in Syria. Unless the Russian position changes, the departure of Assad, who is ultimately responsible for the deaths of thousands upon thousands of innocent Syrian civilians, does not seem in the cards anytime soon."

"The American people do not want another war in the Muslim world, that is clear. The Congress should reflect this by voting against President Obama's referral of a proposed attack on Syria. It is ridiculous to assume that such a vote would destroy America's credibility and cripple the remaining years of the Obama presidency."

"The hope that Israel might backtrack from its untenable policy on the settlements was dashed in the first Obama Administration. According to a new report by an Independent Study Group being published by the Henry L. Stimson Center, it might be a good idea to shift the attention to establishing a border between Israel and a Palestinian State."

"Israel demonstrated once more, implicitly, that it does not favor a two-state solution. It also demonstrated once more that it has no strategic vision as to how to end its 45-year-old occupation of the Palestinian territories. And while it calls on the Palestinians to return to the negotiating table 'without preconditions,' while it continues to build settlements in these territories...."

"...[T]he Russians have gathered together a formidable axis with which to contest the Western aim in Syria, which is to remove Bashar al Assad from power: the fellow veto-wielder in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), China, which has joined with the Russians in stymieing repeated UNSC attempts to end the conflict in Syria and bring about a change of regime. The Russians also have certain regional power backing for their Syrian policy of support to the Bashar al Assad regime: Shia Iran definitely; Shia Hezbollah definitely; and Shia Iraq, to some extent."

"So assuming that negotiations over the Iranian nuclear program will resume after the American presidential elections, as most observers think they will, we will have to see if the policy of stiffing the Iranians — who abhor foreign pressure, in view of their both glorious and inglorious past — will continue not to work; or whether U.S. concessions, which have not been forthcoming so far, will dent the ideological obduracy of the Iranian position."

"Clearly, by the nature of their regimes, neither the Russians nor the Chinese would be expected to countenance the idea of a popular uprising to overthrow a dictatorship. Together China and Russia have formed the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which can be described as a grouping of counter-revolutionary regimes, the leading members of which are bent on checkmating the West where possible. Iran, another like-minded autocratic power, is an observer member of the Organization."

"Whether or not the U.S. joined in an Israeli bombing of Iran, it would be blamed for it, and it would be seen throughout the world as America's fourth military intervention in a Muslim country."

"Though military action, with its unpredictable consequences, is to be avoided at all costs, there is very little chance under present circumstances of the above solution being realized. That is why a number of observers of the Iranian scene are advocating the choice of an intermediary, trusted by both sides, to attempt to break the current impasse."

"...[T]he position of the Russians is not all that comfortable, as with each passing day they lose a grain of credibility in the Sunni Muslim world. Continuing Russian deliveries of arms to the Assad regime which are used to mow down Sunni protesters has not escaped the Muslim world's notice. Sunnis constitute 85 percent of the world's Muslim population and 70–75 percent of the Syrian population."