Support for Israel is nowadays a bedrock principle for Republican politicians, but it was not ever thus. Presidents Eisenhower and Nixon, for instance, both sought to move away from what they saw as their respective predecessors’ excessive favoritism toward the Jewish state. Identifying the presidency of Ronald Reagan as the decisive turning point, Tevi Troy traces the evolution of Republican attitudes:

Last week, Russia negotiated a ceasefire between the Syrian government and rebel forces in the city of Daraa, where the initial protests that sparked the uprising against Bashar al-Assad began. The agreement ended a 75-day assault on the city, located near the country’s southwestern border, by Russian, Iranian, and Syrian forces. Jonathan Spyer explains the significance of these events: