Commentaries, Analysis, And Editorials -- April 3, 2017

Syria's President Bashar al-Assad is seen during an interview with the American magazine Foreign Affairs published in Damascus January 26, 2015. REUTERS/SANA/Handout via Reuters

Kersten Knipp, DW: No Peace Under Assad

It's unclear what's behind it: naivety, or cynicism? The Syrians should decide Assad's political fate for themselves, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson declared on Thursday during a visit to Ankara. The president's "long-term status" must be defined by the Syrian people, he said.

Along with the declaration by Nikki Haley, the US Ambassador to the United Nations, that the Trump administration was no longer focusing on "getting Assad out," Tillerson's comment officially ushers in the new administration's change of course concerning the war in Syria. This attitude is naïve, because a butcher like Assad - Amnesty International has documented that thousands have been arbitrarily executed in his prisons - simply cannot be trusted to respect the will of the people. The move is more likely, though, to be cynical - the result of realizing that they can't get to grips with the political criminal in Damascus anyway.

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Commentaries, Analysis, And Editorials -- April 3, 2017

Did the US, Turkey reach understanding on Assad? -- Al-Monitor

Analysis: What's next for Turkey in Syria? -- Birce Bora, Al Jazeera

Erdogan Is Dividing Turkey Against Itself -- Sonar Cagaptay, The Atlantic

'Not natural friends': Trump, Xi will be 'odd couple' at first summit -- David Brunnstrom, Matt Spetalnick and Ben Blanchard, Reuters

What conspires to make Japanese seem so unhappy? -- Jeff Kingston, Japan Times

The turmoil in Korea -- Ethan Epstein, Weekly Standard

How Pakistan Warped into a Geopolitical Monster -- Robert Cassidy, National Interest

Jacob Zuma: his exit might be anything but dignified -- Jason Burke, The Guardian

What Serbia's Presidential Election Won't Change -- Stratfor

Putin Is Up, But Russians Are Feeling Down -- Leonid Bershidsky, Bloomberg

Putin Likes to Pretend 1917 Never Happened -- Mikhail Zygar, The Atlantic

Is Putin the 'Preeminent Statesman' of Our Times? -- Patrick Buchanan, RCP

The Intelligence Costs of Underestimating Russia: A Warning From History -- David V. Gioe, et al., War on the Rocks

Venezuela's raging homicide epidemic is going unrecorded -- Juan Carlos Garzón and Robert Muggah, L.A. Times

If Nuclear Deterrence Fails, What's The Plan? -- Loren Thompson, RCD