Former Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri yesterday hailed the opening of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) at The Hague as the “first page of true justice” in response to the assassination of his father, former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, as the STL launched its first trial into Hariri’s February 2005...

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The Washington Post reported earlier this week that images smuggled out of a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria show “disturbing images of emaciated children and elderly people” and indicate that there are thousands of residents in the Yarmouk camp at risk of starvation, the result of a siege being maintained by Syria’s...

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The erosion of American influence in the Middle East has created power vacuums which are being filled by geopolitical rivals from across the region, forcing Washington’s allies to “take matters into their own hands,” according to analysis published Wednesday in the New York Times. Michael Doran and Max Boot – senior fellows...

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A central White House argument against Senate legislation that would impose future sanctions on Iran should negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear program fail – that any bill doing so would drain bilateral good will necessary for diplomacy to succeed – may now face deepening skepticism after top Iranian government officials engaged...

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Reuters on Monday published photos taken earlier that day showing “Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif… lay[ing] a wreath at the grave of assassinated Hezbollah military commander” Imad Mughniyeh, a terrorist who was killed in 2008 after having spent literally decades killing Americans and others on behalf of his paymasters in Tehran....

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Reuters reported late on Wednesday that efforts to implement the Joint Plan of Action (JPA) – the deal announced months ago in Geneva between the P5+1 global powers and Iran, which would set up a framework designed to facilitate still more negotiations between the parties over Tehran’s atomic program – have hit a snag. The...

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The United Nations announced Tuesday that it was ceasing to update the death toll in Syria’s nearly three-year war because it can no longer reliably keep track of those killed by the conflict. The Associated Press noted that the last official figures, which were current as of July 2013, estimated that at...

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The Wall Street Journal yesterday published an extensive report, based on previously undisclosed U.S. intelligence, assessing that Hezbollah is smuggling advanced anti-aircraft, anti-ship, and surface-to-surface missiles into Lebanon. The moves illustrate how both Hezbollah and Israel are using Syria’s civil war as cover for what increasingly is seen as a complex and...

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A massive car bomb – which yesterday tore through Hezbollah’s south Beirut stronghold of Dahiyeh killing at least five people and injuring scores – marked the point at which Lebanon succumbed to the almost three year Sunni-Shiite conflict raging in neighboring Syria, according to an extended regional analysis published yesterday in the Weekly Standard....

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Elements inside Lebanon on Sunday fired a volley of rockets into Israel, drawing Israeli artillery fire reportedly targeting the launch site. The attack comes a few weeks after a cross-border sniper attack in which a Lebanese soldier targeted and killed an Israeli soldier driving to base. That attack caused analysts to...

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