CHARLES GLASS, [currently in England], charlesglassbooks at gmail.com, @charlesmglass
Glass was ABC News Chief Middle East correspondent and has written extensively on Syria, including covering the civil war on the ground. His books include Syria Burning: ISIS and the Death of the Arab Spring. A year ago, he wrote the piece “Think the War in Syria Is Winding Down? Think Again.” His most recent piece is “The Result of a Loyalist Victory in Syria’s Eastern Ghouta? More Violence.” See his website: CharlesGlass.net.

JAMES PAUL, [in NYC] james.paul.nyc at gmail.com
Author of Syria Unmasked and the recently released Of Foxes and Chickens: Oligarchy and Power in the UN Security Council, Paul was executive director of Global Policy Forum, a think tank that monitors the UN, for nearly 20 years. He was also a longtime editor of the Oxford Companion to Politics of the World and executive director of the Middle East Research and Information Project.

Paul said today: “As the media celebrate the U.S. visit by Saudi prince Salman, author of the catastrophic bombing and starvation of Yemen, they castigate Syria’s president Bashar for a chemical weapons attack and denounce him once again as the nastiest dictator on earth. Washington, Israel and their Western allies are turning up the heat on Moscow, Tehran and Damascus. The battle over oil and Middle East hegemony continues. The propaganda machine goes into high gear, with John Bolton, Trump’s new national security advisor, bringing his own special poison to the table. A Russian-brokered peace deal appeared to be near just days ago, so something had to be done! The hawks are offering Western publics a stark ‘choice’ between two repulsive options: Bashar and his cronies or a U.S.-backed regime, imposed by force of arms. Or perhaps even a devastated no-go zone like Libya today where civil war goes on and on after the Western regime-change intervention. Who would know that a large and lively democratic movement exists in Syria, opposed to both these options and critical of the self-serving ‘great powers’ who have not hesitated to destroy Syria to achieve their geo-strategic aims. The Islamist ‘opposition’ backed by the Saudis and Washington is certainly not the answer to a democratic and peaceful future. No to all interventions!”