Follow Christiane on social media:
What time is Amanpour on CNN?
Check showtimes to see when Amanpour is on CNN where you are. Or watch online.
Sen. McCain: 'Assad could have been stopped last year'
The civil war in Syria could have been stopped last year if President Obama had armed the rebels, Republican Senator John McCain told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Monday.
“I always believed that we could provide weapons and training, but I also felt it was important to establish a safe zone,” McCain said. Had that happened, he added, “I am confident that [the rebels] would have succeeded by now.”
In Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta’s exit testimony before Congress last week, he revealed that Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and then-CIA Director David Petraeus had offered up a plan to arm and train the Syrian opposition last summer. The plan was rejected by the White House.
With his testimony, Panetta became the first senior official to publicly admit that he, along with key members of the President's national security team, disagreed with the White House decision not to give weapons to Syrian rebels.
Two years into the fighting, the vicious war has at best reached a military stalemate. There is no meaningful sign that either side is ready for real negotiations, though both the opposition and the Assad regime have recently indicated for the first time that they would be willing to talk.
With 60,000 dead, Syria may be headed toward a Somalia-style failed state that could threaten the U.S. and its friends in the region.
What is Plan B? Senator John McCain answers that question in the video above.
READ MORE: Plea from parents of missing American in Syria
World won’t cough up money for aid to Syria
Political solutions have failed to stop the civil war in Syria and now even the U.N. faces a $1.5 billion-dollar shortfall to help the people suffering there. There are 700,000 Syrian refuges in neighboring countries and two million internally-displaced people in Syria who face both a wrecked society and broken economy. The Director of the U.N. office for the coordination of Human Affairs, John Ging, just returned from Syria and told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour that what he witness there was simply “appalling.” The urban warfare has been going on for twenty-two months now and last year the U.N.’s food ration only got to half the people they identified with hunger in Syria.
Update from the U.N.:
"More than $1.5 billion in additional money has been pledged from countries and regional organizations to support the Syria Humanitarian Assistance Response Plan and the Refugee Response Plan over the next six months. This is the largest response ever to a humanitarian pledging conference. And I thank you for your generous contributions. The exact amount is now being calculated."
Turning off the tap for Syrian rebels
By Mick Krever, CNN
Increasing concerns about the long-term aims of certain Syrian opposition forces may now be leading the international community to “turn off the tap for the rebels.”
That is according to NPR Foreign Correspondent Deborah Amos, who has just returned from five-weeks of reporting in and out of Northern Syria.
“I think what is happening is there is some sort of arrangement so that [the rebels] don’t exactly win the war, but they push the regime enough to make them talk,” she told CNN’s Fionnuala Sweeney.
The West is concerned about rebel groups like al-Nusra, which the U.S. branded a terrorist organization last month. But most analysts say that al-Nusra is among the best fighting forces trying to overthrow the regime.
Plea from parents of missing American in Syria
By Claire Calzonetti, Samuel Burke & Mick Krever CNN
“I don’t have a death wish; I have a life wish,” Austin Tice wrote after his third month in Syria, working as a freelance journalist. “Coming here to Syria is the greatest thing I’ve ever done, and it’s the greatest feeling of my life.”
That was in July. A month later he was kidnapped, and is still missing today.
His parents, Marc and Debra Tice, say they are “absolutely” certain Austin is still alive. They sat down for a rare interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Thursday to explain their son’s story, and plead for his safe return.
Thirty-one-year-old Austin Tice disappeared in mid-August while reporting outside Damascus. His writing had been featured in the Washington Post and McClatchy newspapers.
In what would be the final Tweet before his capture in August, the Texas native appeared to be in good spirits. On August 11 he wrote, “Spent the day at an FSA pool party with music by [Taylor Swift]. They even brought me whiskey. Hands down, best birthday ever.”
The Tices talked almost daily with their son, then suddenly they heard nothing from him for weeks.
After an agonizing wait, a video of the journalist surfaced on YouTube in September. The 47-second video showed Tice, obviously in distress, being led up a hill by armed and masked men chanting “Allahu Akbar” – God is the greatest.
Debra Tice said she went into physical shock when she saw the video, but also realized what it meant: Austin was still alive.
Tice’s father told Amanpour that “No parents, no family should see their son, their child, their sibling, in those circumstances,” but he hopes the video might ultimately lead to contact with whomever is holding their son.
Analysts say the video looks staged and that there are reasons to believe the men in the video are not the Islamic extremists they purport to be.
The U.S. State Department believes Tice is actually being held by the Syrian regime, a charge Damascus denies.
Tice’s parents say they do not want to speculate about who is holding him – they just want their son back home.
Debra Tice described Austin, the eldest of her seven children, as a passionate man. She tried to explain, for a mother, the seemingly inexplicable: Why her son would go to one of the most violent countries on earth.
“He likes to know what's going on in the world,” she said, and he was frustrated by the lack first-hand reporting from Syria’s civil war. He told her, “‘I'm someone that can go. I can face that danger because this story is important.’”
On the chance that Austin sees the interview his parents spoke directly to him: “Austin, we love you … we’re doing everything we can to get you safely home.”
The Tice family has established a website to help find their son: http://www.austinticefamily.com/
Backlash to U.S. moves in Syria
The Syrian Opposition Vice President
Christiane Amanpour speaks with George Sabra about the U.S. decision to recognize the Syrian opposition.
No diplomatic solution in Syria
The United States' former point man on Syria's transition says there's little chance for a diplomatic solution.
By Samuel Burke, CNN
The United States’ former point person on Syria admits that there is practically no chance diplomacy will ever remove Bashar al-Assad.
Former Ambassador Frederic Hof told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Wednesday, “My sense is that this will be ultimately decided through force of arms on the ground” – despite the Obama administration’s reluctance to give heavy weapons to rebels.
President Obama announced on Monday that the U.S. would formally recognize the opposition as representative of the Syrian people, but that may not have a significant effect, at least for now.
“I think in terms of the military situation on the ground, quite bluntly, it changes nothing in the near term,” Ambassador Hof told Amanpour. But he believes that politically, it is good for Syrians in the long term.
Despite the violence in Syria, many groups are nervous about what would happen if al-Assad were to leave - particularly minorities who have been protected under Assad’s rule. But Hof believes that the U.S. recognition puts a face on the opposition and will help reassure the various factions.
At the same time it recognized the opposition, the Obama administration designated a group known as al-Nusra as terrorists—a move which was been met with backlash in Syria. FULL POST
Arab Spring knocking at Jordan’s door
By Samuel Burke, CNN
The Arab Spring has spared Jordan’s monarchy, but the foreign minister says it cannot be ignored.
“The Arab Spring has affected Jordan - a gentle breeze, as I keep saying, as opposed to the turbulent winds we saw in other countries,” Nasser Judeh told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour Tuesday.
Small outbursts in Jordan have turned into increasingly large protests. Islamists have taken to the street, along side ordinary people who are protesting increasing utility costs, corruption and a lack of reforms.
Shouts that King Abdullah II must go have been heard, but Judeh dismissed them, saying “It's a few people who did that in an atmosphere of an angry reaction over lifting subsidies on fuel products. So it's unfair to say ‘the people are asking.’”
Judeh defended Jordan’s constitutional monarchy and went as far as to say that King Abdullah II is the consensus figure for the country.
“He's the guarantor of the reform process; he's the facilitator of dialogue. And at the end of the day, he's the one who's leading this reform process” Judeh told Amanpour. FULL POST
A Syrian ‘opposition prime minister' ?
By Mick Krever, CNN
A Syrian “opposition prime minister” could be named within a few days, according to France’s Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius.
Last month, France became the first European power to recognize the Syrian opposition as the sole legitimate representative of the Syrian people, and in an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Monday, Fabius said he has faith in the leadership of the group.
“If we want to get rid of Bashar al-Assad, we have to show that the alternative is reasonable, and efficient,” Fabius said. “And we’ve met this coalition. The leaders of the coalition are nice people. They are not corrupt. They are dedicated to the country. And they are more and more united, which was and is an absolute necessity.” FULL POST
NATO set to send missiles to Turkey’s border
By Samuel Burke, CNN
NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen confirmed on Monday that the military alliance is expected to deploy Patriot missiles to Turkey's border as a preventive measure against spillover from Syria’s civil war.
Rasmussen told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour that he anticipates that foreign ministers meeting in Brussels on Tuesday would make a decision the same day and expects them to “respond positively” to the Turkish requests.
Three locations along Turkey’s southeast border with Syria have already been identified as possible locations for the Patriot missiles, which would come from the United States, Germany and the Netherlands, and would take just weeks to deploy according to Rasmussen.
U.S. officials tell CNN that they are increasingly concerned that Bashar al-Assad is preparing chemical weapons for use. FULL POST
France's long and complicated history with Syria
The Syrian opposition have united under a new leader: cleric Sheikh Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib.
France has given the group its support - betting that this new coalition will help bring down the regime of Bashar al-Assad. Just a dozen years ago, then-French President Jacques Chirac was the only Western leader to attend the funeral of Bashar al-Assad's father. The Assad family belongs to the sect known as the Alawites, a group that was actually empowered in Syria by French colonialists.
CNN's Hala Gorani looks at France's long and complicated history with Syria.
Israel in communication with Assad
By Samuel Burke, CNN
The former head of Israel’s intelligence agency, Efraim Halevy, has refused to characterize Syrian shelling on the Israel-Syria border as neither deliberate nor as just an accidental spillover from the ongoing civil war.
Initially Israel did not respond to shells falling in its territory. But on Sunday Israel returned fire for the first time since the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
In an interview CNN’s Hala Gorani on Tuesday, Halevy said that at first, Israel purposely avoided hitting a military target; but after the second shelling, Israeli forces hit an artillery battery.
While Israel did this on the ground, it “also sent a message, an oral message through certain channels to the presidency in Damascus that this would not be tolerated," Halvey said. “It would not be to his interest or the interests of anybody in Syria to involve Israel in any possible way in the current fighting.” FULL POST
@camanpour on Twitter
