Syria toxic gas inquiry to end after Russia again blocks U.N. renewal 11/18/2017 9:09:57 AM   facebook Google+ ► Print Russian Ambassador to the United Nations Vasily Nebenzya votes against a bid to renew an international inquiry into chemical weapons attacks in Syria UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) NOV. 17, 2017 -- An international investigation into who is to blame for chemical weapons attacks in Syria will end on Friday after Russia blocked for the third time in a month attempts at the  United Nations to renew the inquiry, which Moscow has slammed as flawed. In the past two years, the joint U.N. and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) inquiry has found the Syrian government used the nerve agent sarin in an April 4 attack and has also several times used chlorine as a weapon. It blamed Islamic State militants for using mustard gas. Russia vetoed on Friday a Japanese-drafted U.N. Security Council resolution to exte...

He's Right About Iran Presidential candidate Donald Trump disparaged the Obama administration’s nuclear deal with Iran in characteristically superlative terms: “My number-one priority,” he said to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in March 2016, “is to dismantle the disastrous deal with Iran. I have been in business a long time. I know deal-making, and let me tell you, this deal is catastrophic—for America, for Israel, and for the whole Middle East. . . . We have rewarded the world’s leading state sponsor of terror with $150 billion, and we received absolutely nothing in return.” We didn’t disagree with Trump’s reasoning then, and we don’t now. This magazine has been sharply critical of much the president has done, but on two vital questions—Iran and North Korea—we believe his instincts are sound. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, negotiated by the Obama administration and signed in 2015, took pressure off one of the world’s most aggressive spo...