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Former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta's "Worthy Fights" provides a better perspective on the Syria-Iraq conflict- about a conflict in Syria that was the result of president Obama not acting when a "red line" of the use of chemical weapons was crossed. A similiar point is made by U.S. Secretary of State Clinton. Both advisors to Obama were ignored in favor of Mr. Donilon and other White House adviosrs who lacked the experience of Panetta and Clinton. On the Iraq conflict Maliki's misguided sectarian policies were not sufficiently constrained by U.S. effort to preserve earlier hard won gains under the Bush administration. At the end of the Bush administration Iraq was returning to a peaceful period and the war had largely been won against old Saddam loyalists in Anbar province. Ultimately Obama's lack of experience in foreign policy and his failure to heed the advice of people with that experience such as Panetta and Clinton, was the basis of the crisis inadvertently created in Syria by a tendency of inaction. The Syrian situation was not fully grasped as leaving Sunnis to suffer Assad regime air attacks creating 2 million refugees, something that should have prompted action by the international community. With Sarkozy gone in France and Cameron unable to convince the U.S. alone, or move forward with the French unilaterally, the inaction phenomenon of the Obama White House left the entire Sunni communty throughout the Middle East without any support as they watched the destruction in Syria. ...

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The lack of U.S. leadership and slow response by the Obama administration to the rapidly developing situation in the region risks spillover effects from Syria to affect the entire Middle East. Russia's stakes are minimal in the region because it is simply trying to retain some of its old influence in the region, yet it is having an outsized influence in the region through its early military assistance to the Assad regime. The stakes are much higher for the U.S. because of the decade spent and resources invested in Iraq, higher for Iraq with its need for civil harmony between Shiite and Sunni communities, for Turkey with its large Kurdish minority and flow of refugees from the border with Syria, for Saudi Arabia as a defender of Sunni interests. Without active U.S. leadership the situation is allowed to drift and young people of the Free Syrian Army are basically taking on the bulk of the role of resolving the situation. France's Sarkozy and Britain's Cameron offered this kind of leadership in Libya as Libya's young people struggled to resolve the situation there. ...

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The war in Syria enters a new phase in Feb. 2013 with the effort to send heavy weaponry to moderates and the Free Syrian Army and shift the focus of the war to the south and Damascus. The source of the weapons are moderate Muslim nations, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Quatar, and western nations.

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Content Links 1. THE MISSILE ASPECTS OF THE LEBANESE CONFLICT OF 2006. The missiles have a reach of 10-20 upto a 100 miles. Most of the missiles are portable and can be moved from place to place and stored in wooden crates that can be easily transported. And the missiles are stored deep inside Shiite villages and towns, where the Shiite parties run the local government and provide social services and medical services, so that the resistance is kind of embedded in these areas. Considering that Lebanon is 40% Shiite and the backkground of oil rich Shiite Iran and its economic support of the Shiites here this becomes a difficult problem for Israel as it involves a door to door search to prevent the missiles from being launched. A senior Israeli military official: "Its a big problem for us, the launchers pop up for only a few minutes before the rocket goes... We just can't get them all."

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The return of street bombings in Iraq by Al Quaeda affiliates leads to increased sectarian violence in 2013. Sunnis feel they are targeted as Iraqi government forces conduct searches following bombings, and issue residence cards for Sunni areas to prevent infiltration by Al Quaeda terrorists. Sunnis fear the formation of Shiite private militia groups.

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The main thrust of the article is contained in 3 content links: first one is how the Resistance as the Hezbollah cals itself has made itself part of the social fabric, the second the peculiar set of events thaat led to this, the third about the peculiardemocratic representation system that was designed after the Lebanese civil war. Content Links 1. Hezbollah as part of the social fabric. Hezbollah legislators pushed through a $35 million drinking water faility, a waste disposal project of about $35 million and a $68 million road project in the Shiite dominant Bekaa Valley. See the reference to the organic farm and other economic and charitable projects in Solomon/Leggett WSJ 7-21-06, financed by Iran. 2. The Peculiar Set of Events that Led to Hezbollah integrating into the Lebanese social and political fabric. The Lebanese civil war began in 1975 and formally ended in 1989 with accord that reserved ccertain number of parliamentary seats and key positions for each sect or religious group. The Shiites had 27 and Sunnis 27, the Christians 64 and the Muslims 64 in the 128 member Parliament after the 2005 elections. The President has to be a Maronite Chrisitian, the Prime Minister a Sunni Muslim, and the Speaker of Parliament a Shiite Muslim, according to the accord. The Shhites led by Hezbollah took the maximum number of seats available to Shiite Muslims during the election, 35 according to this article though 27 is shown under the earlier Solomon Democracy article. After the election which followed Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon, the Shiite parties joined the coalition government an took 2 ministries , energy and labor, and negotiated veto powers over any cabinet decisions. 3. The Lebanese Democratic System that emerged from the 1989 accord. This gave Maronite Christians, Sunni Muslims (for long time priviliged and better educated groups in Lebanon compared to the less well educated Shiites having higher rates of unemployment and illiteracy as well as less access to governace, ) a proportionally bigger say in the government. About 40% of Lebanon's population is Shiite, but their representation in the Parliament of 128 seats is a maximum of 35 seats, with the rest going to other Muslims and Christians. Ali Nasr refers to this in his key article for this group. In a Lebanon with a Shiite Revival this still leaves more progress in democratic representation for the Shiiites in the future. ...

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Questions being raised about the Obama administration's approach to the war in Syria.

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Efforts to repair strained Saudi ties with a visit by U.S. president Obama in March 2014.

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Turkey's recognition for Syria's national coalition as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people.

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The stories of Syrian refugees from the Ramtha Cemetery in Jordan.

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Washington Post's Kevin Sullivan and Linda Davidson on a project to follow the stories of Syrian refugees in the region around Syria.

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Tom Donilon, is national security advisor to President Obama. His experience includes working as chief of staff for Warren Christopher in the Clinton administration, and 8 years as an executive at Fannie Mae before being brought into the Obama circle by Rahm Emmanuel as deputy to national security advisor Gen. Jones. Robert Gates view was that Donilon would be "a disaster." His early experience as a political operative for the Carter campaign to his work for the 1988 Biden presidential campaign, and work at Fannie Mae as a business executive, suggests lack of experience in foreign affairs needed for this role. A focus on efficiency and being able to sync with Obama's thinking on foreign affairs may not be the qualities needed in this critical role.