Richard N. Haass outlines a U.S. policy toward Syria that balances a need to act meaningfully with a need to show restraint.

The French Government released its declassified assessment of the August 21 chemical weapons attack in Syria.

"Even after 100,000 deaths in Syria, the chemical weapons attack evoked a visceral response."

President Barack Obama gave this statement on August 31, 2013, to explain his decision to pursue military intervention in response to the August 21 chemical weapons attack in Damascus.

"The Obama administration and its allies should understand that even limited intervention would hasten Syria's demise," argues Steven A. Cook.

The U.S. government released this assessment on August 30, 2013, to provide declassified details about the August 21 chemical weapons attack in Damascus.

Secretary of State John Kerry gave this statement on August 30, 2013, to review with the American people the Obama administration's assessment about the August 21 chemical weapons attack on Syrian civilizans and the steps taken to develop a plan with U.S. and international officials to intervene.

The search for evidence of chemical weapons in Syria is painstaking and hampered by harsh conditions, but could yield decisive findings as debate over military action intensifies, says expert Amy E. Smithson.

The government of the United Kingdom published its position on August 29, 2013, about the legality of military action in Syria after the chemical weapons attack in Damascus on August 21.

Laurie Garrett explains what makes sarin gas dangerous to humans and reviews the chemical's deadly history in this op-ed for CNN Opinion. She then discusses the potential political implications of sarin's usage in Syria, concluding that "the Assad regime is playing with regional fire."

International forces in Afghanistan are preparing to hand over responsibility for security to Afghan soldiers and police by the end of 2014. U.S. President Barack Obama has argued that battlefield successes since 2009 have enabled this transition and that with it, "this long war will come to a responsible end."

Since 9/11, two consecutive U.S. administrations have labored mightily to help Afghanistan create a state inhospitable to terrorist organizations with transnational aspirations and capabilities.

Elliott Abrams says the problem with the Obama administration's probable reaction in Syria is that it does not seem likely to address real American security interests at stake or the growing humanitarian disaster, and instead focus narrowly on another: Assad's use of chemical weapons.

CFR President Richard N. Haass discusses U.S. interests and options amidst reports of chemical weapons used by the regime of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.

Secretary of State John Kerry gave these remarks on August 26, 2013, regarding U.S. response to evidence of chemical weapons use in Syria.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon released two statements on August 21, 2013, after reports of chemical weapons being used in Syria. Ambassador Maria Cristina Perceval of Argentina, UN Security Council President for August, spoke at the same press conference.

"With U.S. polls showing Americans wanting fewer global entanglements and dramatically reduced defense spending, and with Congress stuck in its budget limbo, the Afghanistan war still two years from Obama's finish line, and Middle East countries embroiled in a bloody tectonic shift, it will be Hagel's job to explain why Asian security, on top of all of that, is also a job for the United States."

"Cutting off aid is the only serious way to tell the Egyptian military that its current conduct is beyond the pale," writes Elliott Abrams.

"For better or worse, violence usually provides the most definitive answers to three major questions of political life: statehood, territoriality, and power. Violent struggle—war, revolution, terrorism—more than any other immediate factor, determines what nations will exist and their relative power, what territories they occupy, and which groups will exercise power within them."

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, and Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu met in Washington, D.C. on August 9, 2013, to discuss trade, nuclear threat reduction, and strategies to address crises in Syria and Egypt.