US officials announced this week that a specially outfitted cargo vessel will set sail for the Mediterranean Sea in the next two weeks with machines and specialists on board which will allow for the destruction of Syria’s vast stockpiles of chemical weapons. “Without this ship, this mission is not possible,” top Pentagon arms buyer Frank Kendall told reporters on the dock near the MV Cape Ray, “this avoids having to put these materials on somebody’s territory, where you have to deal with all the political and environmental conditions associated with doing that under local law.” Meanwhile, violence related to the conflict in Syria flared this week in two of its most fragile yet strategically important neighbors, Lebanon and Iraq. Read More 
