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| Daily News Brief September 5, 2013 |
Top of the Agenda: Syria Strikes Loom Over G20 Summit
Leaders
from the Group of 20 leading world economies are meeting St. Petersburg
for an annual summit that is expected to be overtaken this year by
sharp divisions over a looming U.S.-led strike to punish the Syrian government's alleged use of chemical weapons (AP).
While many observers will search for clues in the interactions between
Presidents Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin, the G20 is also expected to
sign an agreement that fights tax evasion by multinational corporations (BBC), and will discuss concerns from emerging markets about the Federal Reserve's plan to taper its quantitative easing program (CSMonitor).
Analysis
"As the only multilateral forum that unites, and is limited to, the most important advanced and emerging countries, the G20 must be allowed to address the other critical challenges
confronting the world, including matters of peace and security. This is
the emerging lesson of the St. Petersburg summit, where the question of
what to do about Syria will dominate conversation, even if it is not on
the formal agenda," writes CFR Senior Fellow Stewart M. Patrick.
"With
U.S. missiles poised to strike at a key Russian ally, keeping the focus
on the G-20's economic agenda may be a lost cause – about as likely as
making Putin and Obama see eye to eye at the summit. And although the
weather is forecast to be clear this week in St. Petersburg, the mood
inside the Konstantin Palace will likely be as cold as a Russian winter," writes Simon Shuster for TIME.
"The
U.S. is now debating a military campaign that marries the highest, most
abstract idealism to the harshest, most unsettling pragmatism: Obama
wants to punish Assad for violating the abstract norms of war even as he
leaves Assad capable of continuing his massacre by more conventional means. This is why there is no enthusiasm for intervening in Syria," writes Ezra Klein for Bloomberg.
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