Source
Wall Street Journal (United States)

The surreal atmosphere of the Covid-19 pandemic calls to mind how I felt as a young man in the 84th Infantry Division during the Battle of the Bulge. Now, as in late 1944, there is a sense of inchoate danger, aimed not at any particular person, but striking randomly and with devastation. But there is an important difference between that faraway time and ours. American endurance then was fortified by an ultimate national purpose. Now, in a divided country, efficient and farsighted government (...)

Across Turkey’s southern border, Bashar Assad’s criminal regime has for seven years targeted Syria’s citizens with arbitrary arrests, systematic torture, summary executions, barrel bombs, and chemical and conventional weapons. As a result of the Syrian civil war, which the United Nations Human Rights Council calls “the worst man-made disaster since World War II,” millions of innocent people have become refugees or been internally displaced.
Turkey has gone to extraordinary lengths to alleviate (...)

The facts about America’s prison system are startling. The U.S. has 4% of the world’s population, but roughly 25% of the world’s prisoners. Federal and state prisons hold some 1.5 million inmates, and 6.2 million people are in local jails, on parole or on probation. Of the 650,000 people who leave prison every year, two-thirds will commit a new crime within three years.
By reforming federal prisons, Congress has the opportunity to help give former inmates a second chance to become successful, (...)

‘They make a desert and call it peace,” wrote the Roman historian Tacitus, quoting an enemy of Rome about its brutal conquests. The same could be said today of Bashar Assad and his ally Russian President Vladimir Putin in Syria.
At this moment, Syrian and Russian forces, together with Iranian and Hezbollah militia fighters, are preparing to finish their siege of Aleppo. The 275,000 people who reportedly remain in the city are being told to flee. Thousands will do so, choosing to become (...)

The debate about whether the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran regarding its nuclear program stabilized the Middle East’s strategic framework had barely begun when the region’s geopolitical framework collapsed. Russia’s unilateral military action in Syria is the latest symptom of the disintegration of the American role in stabilizing the Middle East order that emerged from the Arab- Israeli war of 1973.
In the aftermath of that conflict, Egypt abandoned its military ties with the (...)

Behind Putin’s Cynicism and Hypocrisy
The Kremlin’s ruler wants to extend to neighboring countries the tyranny he imposes on his own people.
You can usually figure what Russian President Vladimir Putin is doing and why by noting the actions and values he falsely projects onto others.
Over the past several weeks, for example, he has accused the Ukrainian government of stripping autonomy from Ukraine’s eastern regions, while moving to end local elections in Russia.
He has claimed U.S. (...)

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who inherited a regime that has held power for four decades, said he will push for more political reforms in his country, in a sign of how Egypt’s violent revolt is forcing leaders across the region to rethink their approaches.
In a rare interview, Mr. Assad told The Wall Street Journal that the protests in Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen are ushering in a "new era" in the Middle East, and that Arab rulers would need to do more to accommodate their people’s rising (...)
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