Preventing corporate turnarounds : developing a conceptual EWS framework for the prediction of turnaround situations

Currently, corporate crises are seen as an inevitability and an unavoidable part of the corporate life cycle. Therefore, the early recognition of crises has not been a focal point of business research in the past decades. The development of a conceptual framework would not only be beneficial for the company and the management, by predicting imminent crisis situations, but also for the employees, who would no longer be part of extreme downsizing campaigns. Therefore, the research hypothesis focused on challenging the existing consensus. By stating that a reliable framework would be able to prevent corporate turnarounds, the objective of this thesis was given. The created framework, consisting several analytical methods, including a multiple discriminant analysis and a logistic regression, was applied to several cases of corporate crises. The inclusion of companies operating in different industries in the analysis sample ensured the cross-industry predictive capabilities of the developed framework. The analysis relied on audited, publicly available financial information from annual reports. By focusing on the existing errors in crisis recognition, it was ensured that the developed framework creates added value for company executives. Overall, it was concluded that the created EWS model is a step forward regarding crisis recognition and possibly serves as the foundation for a more extensive framework in the future. By complementing the created model with qualitative factors, the cause-analysis of looming crises could be facilitated. Another way of improving on the conceptual framework would be the analysis of industry-specific scales, which would facilitate its interpretation

Predictive factors for ovarian response in a corifollitropin alfa/GnRH antagonist protocol for controlled ovarian stimulation in IVF/ICSI cycles

Background This secondary analysis aimed to identify predictors of low (<6 oocytes retrieved) and high ovarian response (>18 oocytes retrieved) in IVF patients undergoing controlled ovarian stimulation with corifollitropin alfa in a gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) antagonist protocol. Methods Statistical model building for high and low ovarian response was based on the 150 μg corifollitropin alfa treatment group of the Pursue trial in infertile women aged 35–42 years (n = 694). Results Multivariable logistic regression models were constructed in a stepwise fashion (P <0.05 for entry). 14.1 % of subjects were high ovarian responders and 23.2 % were low ovarian responders. The regression model for high ovarian response included four independent predictors: higher anti-Müllerian hormone (AMH) and antral follicle count (AFC) increased the risk, and higher follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) levels and advancing age decreased the risk of high ovarian response. The regression model for low ovarian response also included four independent predictors: advancing age increased the risk, and higher AMH, higher AFC and longer menstrual cycle length decreased the risk of low ovarian response. Conclusions AMH, AFC and age predicted both high and low ovarian responses, FSH predicted high ovarian response, and menstrual cycle length predicted low ovarian response in a corifollitropin alfa/GnRH antagonist protocol

Uniform persistence criteria for a variable inputs chemostat model with delayed response in growth and complete analysis of the periodic case

We study a single-species chemostat model with variable nutrient input and variable dilution rate with delayed (fixed) response in growth. The first goal of this article is to prove that persistence implies uniform persistence. Then we concentrate in the particular case with periodic nutrient input and same periodic dilution with delayed response in growth. We obtain a threshold for either the (uniform) persistence of the model or that the biomass of every solution tends to vanish. Furthermore, we prove that persistence is equivalent to the existence of a unique non-trivial periodic solution. We also prove that this solution is attractive. We remark in no case we need to impose any restrictions on the size of the delay.Comment: 24 pages, 0 figure

Avoiding bias in medical ethical decision-making. Lessons to be learnt from psychology research

When ethical decisions have to be taken in critical, complex medical situations, they often involve decisions that set the course for or against life-sustaining treatments. Therefore the decisions have far-reaching consequences for the patients, their relatives, and often for the clinical staff. Although the rich psychology literature provides evidence that reasoning may be affected by undesired influences that may undermine the quality of the decision outcome, not much attention has been given to this phenomenon in health care or ethics consultation. In this paper, we aim to contribute to the sensitization of the problem of systematic reasoning biases by showing how exemplary individual and group biases can affect the quality of decision-making on an individual and group level. We are addressing clinical ethicists as well as clinicians who guide complex decision-making processes of ethical significance. Knowledge regarding exemplary group psychological biases (e.g. conformity bias), and individual biases (e.g. stereotypes), will be taken from the disciplines of social psychology and cognitive decision science and considered in the field of ethical decision-making. Finally we discuss the influence of intuitive versus analytical (systematical) reasoning on the validity of ethical decision-makin

In Vivo Effect of Leukemia Inhibitory Factor (LIF) and an Anti-LIF Polyclonal Antibody on Murine Embryo and Fetal Development Following Exposure at the Time of Transcervical Blastocyst Transfer

Leukemia inhibitory factor (LIF) enhances in vitro murine preimplantation development in a time- and dose-dependent fashion. Knockout experiments have demonstrated that endometrial LIF is essential for in vivo murine implantation. We assessed the impact of LIF and an anti-LIF polyclonal antibody (pab) on in vivo development and developed a novel and successful nonsurgical method of embryo transfer for this species, a transcervical blastocyst transfer technique. The objectives of this study were to evaluate the effects of LIF and the anti-LIF pab on 1) implantation, resorption, pregnancy, and viability rates and 2) the overall structural and skeletal development. Two-cell embryos were recovered from superovulated mated donors, cultured to the expanded blastocyst stage, and transferred transcervically into pseudopregnant recipients. Exposure to 5000 U/ml LIF resulted in significant increases in implantation, pregnancy, and viability rates compared with controls. A similar dose of pab produced overall inhibitory effects with a significant decrease in implantation rate. Paradoxically, lower pab doses resulted in significantly increased viability rates. Exposure to LIF had no effect on fetoplacental development. However, pab treatments had variable but significant negative effects on placental length, ossification of the exoccipital bone, and vertebral space width compared with controls. Exposure of murine blastocysts to LIF at the time of transcervical transfer resulted in pronounced positive effects on implantation and pregnancy rates without affecting fetal development. A similar pab dose dramatically reduced implantation and pregnancy rates; at high and low doses, pab produced deleterious effects on placental and skeletal development

Wo Bartleby den Most holt …

Beitrag der Gruppe «Psychoanalyse am Werk» Bern

THE PROBLEM WITH PRIMARIES

The virulent strain of nativist, anti-establishment, anti-corporatist and anti-immigrant sentiment is rocking the foundations of traditional party systems in all industrialized democracies. Its causes are many, but in broad terms it is safe to say they surfaced right after the 2008-09 economic collapse, an era that was characterized by intense polarization and confrontational approaches against governments, corporations and financial institutions which crossed party lines and traditional political cleavages. The sweeping changes brought about by globalized capital and corporate interests, and the blurring of national borders that accompanied them, have alienated big swathes of the population and given rise to new forms of strident populism everywhere.In the United States the main manifestation of this phenomenon is taking the form of a populist revolt, a singular form of class warfare inside the Republican Party, between the established party hierarchy and the Tea Party movement.As the next legislative election approaches, the internecine feud within the Republican Party continues to create challenges for its top candidates who must veer more right-wing to secure the nomination and then turn back to the center of American politics to win the general election. Before 2012, the GOP tried to co-opt the extreme right and used their rhetoric, but after the 2012 election losses, the party took uncertain steps to distance itself from the movement. Today, the movement rather than the establishment seems to be dictating the party line, so there is paralysis in Washington once again. The leadership will still have to govern and legislate on some central issues-increase the debt limit, fund the government, and renew the authorization charter of the Export-Import Bank, among other things, and in so doing, further alienate Tea Party voters. The Republican-dominated House will no doubt stay away from the avoidable taboos, such as considering immigration reform (for which the Senate already passed its own bill one year ago!) and in consequence, one more time unintentionally secure the Latino vote for the Democratic Party. They will continue blocking the minimum wage raise and the Fair Paycheck Act, thereby losing the minorities and women’s vote. In this context, the 2016 presidential horizon looks brilliantly promising for Democrats and their two presidential hopefuls, Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren.The defeat of Virginia Representative and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in the June 10th Republican primary for the seventh Congressional district is symptomatic of deep divisions not only within the Republican Partybut in the electorate at large. Eric Cantor, a Republican with impeccable conservative credentials who had been re-elected seven times and who was first in line for House Speaker,lost by ten solid points to a little known college professor who ran against him by portraying him as the pro-Wall Street, pro-K Street typical Washington insider, indifferent from Main Street needs and demands. This race is very significant for several reasons. For starters, the anti-Washington, anti “corporate welfare” and anti-Wall Street sentiment is widespread among independent voters and those GOP legislators that have been “pro-bailout, pro-Obama stimulus spending and pro-immigration," as articulated by Tea Party leaders, live in fear of being chastened by voters.That is why this week Republicans in Congress who were holding their breath, are exhaling with a sense of relief as Senator Thad Cochran wins the primary runoff against Tea Party challenger ChrisMcDaniels who ran on a promise to voters that he would add his voice to the fight against Obamacare and big government spending. It appears then that the anti-incumbent sentiment has not been strong enoughto become a sustained trend: so far, only two sitting representatives have not won re-nomination in the House and all 18 Senate races have been won by those holding the seats, including Lindsay Graham of South Carolina, who was a leader in favor of Immigration Reform in the Senate, but has been vocal in confronting Obama with his dismal record in foreign policy, from Benghazi to Syria to Ukraine, and now all the way back to Iraq. But even pollsters have been taken by surprise in most cases, whether as to the narrowness of results (such as the one is Mississippi, which required a runoff election) or to the unfathomable upsets (Cantor’s represents a historical defeat: no Majority leader had been voted out in a primary election since the nineteenth century). There are many reasons why nobody saw this coming, first among them the constant problem of voter turnout, especially in primaries, followed by new strategies by candidates (David Bratt, the college professor that beat Cantor, did door -to -door canvassing, taking time to speak to prospective voters, and he beat a competitor who had outspent him 40 to 1) and by the strong commitment of a small group of activists that mobilized the grassroots against Cantor’s pro-business stance. The outcome of these races is further complicated by the fact that many Democrats are taking part in open primaries, which makes them even more unpredictable. Democrats participated in both races, voting against the incumbent, Cantor, in Virginia (he was perceived as the main obstacle for bringing to the floor a vote on immigration bills that apparently would have had the votes to pass) and in favor of incumbent, veteranSenator Thad Cochran in Mississippi (he courted the African American vote, pointing out the amount of federal funds he had brought to the state in his 36 years as Senator, and they acquiesced, fearing Mc Daniels would be a worse choice for their interests in such a red state as Mississippi).These idiosyncratic variations and distortions should not distract us from the fact that the defeat of ultra-conservative House Majority leader from a white, affluent Richmond suburb is extremely significant and will have many ramifications in the near future. First and foremost, it has led to an immediate reshuffle of the party internal House leadership, as Cantorresigned his post as Majority leader. The first in line to fill his post, House whip Kevin McCarthy from California, used his insider skills to mobilize his contacts and call in his favors fast enough to pre-empt a challenge by a Tea Party congressman from Idaho, Raul Labrador, in a secret, internal party ballot. He has thus become Majority leader only eight years after he was first elected to Congress for California 23rd district. If re-elected in November, he will be first in line for House Speaker when Rep. Boehner gives up his post. This coveted position would have been Cantor’s crowning achievement after a solid career of 14 years in Congress: he had hoped to become the first Jewish Speaker of the House.In spite of McCarthy’s success in pre-empting challenges from outside the party leadership, the next one in line to move into McCarthy’s whip position, deputy whip Peter Roskam from Illinois, lost the ballot to Tea Party challenger Steve Scalise from Louisiana, who mobilized the vote of Southern legislators and won, thereby establishing a presence for the movement inside the GOP hierarchy. Scalise, who was elected to Congress in 2008, has also risen rapidly through the ranks, as chairman of the ultra-conservative Republican Study Group and as a vocal advocate against big government.Party Whips in Congress are in charge of counting votes for and against legislation. They are enforcers, offering incentives and doling out punishments for votes among their caucus members. Their role becomes particularly important in close votes. The whip is also the main liaison between the party leadership and the rank and file.Primaries are proving to be much more dangerous for establishment Republicans than a prospective national election at the end of this year, in which they are poised to win both some Senate and House seats, mainly due to slow economic growth and low support for Obama, but more pointedly due to the opportunity created by the retirement of a significant number of long-serving senior legislators. Rather than the November election challenge against Democrats, primaries have become the main obstacle to surmount and the main focus of funding for incumbents and party establishment candidates. Memories of seats lost due to Tea party primary winners in the national 2010 and 2012 election still loom heavily in GOP minds. Karl Rove’s words of advice to both the Tea Party activists and the GOP leadershipin February of 2010 still resonate in the halls of Congress:“If Tea party groups are to maximize their influence on policy, they must now begin the difficult task of disassociating themselves from cranks and conspiracy nuts. This includes 9/11 deniers, "birthers" who insist Barack Obama was not born in the U.S., and militia supporters espousing something vaguely close to armed rebellion.”“The GOP is also better off if it foregoes any attempt to merge with the tea party movement. The GOP cannot possibly hope to control the dynamics of the highly decentralized galaxy of groups that make up the tea party movement. There will be troubling excesses and these will hurt Republicans if the party is formally associated with tea party groups” (Wall Street Journal, Feb. 18 2010).Because they are extremely vocal as well as media favorites (whether to disparage or to endorse them) and have made some undeniable inroads into the halls of power, the Tea Partiers have indeed made a splash in US politics, and they have re-shaped the agenda on issues of taxes and spending (with mixed success). But so far this term, 273 of 275 House incumbents and 18 out of 18 Senators have won re-nomination, even if in most House cases these contests were won by small margins. This is evidence that there is still somediscipline in party ranks, and newcomers are forced to follow the party leadership. For example in Kentucky, Sen. Rand Paul, largely recognized as the presidential candidate for Tea-Partiers and libertarians alike, did not campaign in favor of the Tea Party candidate who was running against Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell, and gave the former only lukewarm support. Senator McConnell, a tough, seasoned veteran, was reported to have had a private, one-on-one, closed-doors conversation with Rand Paul before the primary campaign started…It then becomes clear that membership still has its privileges, and the Tea Partiers’ disdain for insider politicking and the compromises required by politics in general won’t take them very far. That is the stuff of politics, so now these political neophytes are getting into the fray, they will have to learn a few organizational lessons from the savvy insiders they are trying to replace. Nonetheless, one of the first comments made by Kevin McCarthy Fox News as he moved into Cantor’s position was that “Yes, he would let the Export-Import Bank (reauthorization) to expire because it is something the private sector can do better”. This represents a reversal from his 2012 position, and one that distances him from the business community and the party establishment, who want the Bank to remain.. (Tea Partiers want to do away with the Ex-Im, the IRS and the Department of Education, among other institutions they find superfluous). In another interview, McCarthy asserted that the GOP had more to gain (politically) if it moved closer to libertarian ideas. So it has become apparent then, that the Tea Party as a movement and as a faction of the Republican Party is here to stay, at least for the near future. Its strength will depend on how they can accommodate their desires to the realities of governing the United States of America in the XXI century.María Fornella-Oehninger - Comparative Politics Professor, Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia

HOW TO GOVERN IN TIMES OF GRIDLOCK

Two weeks ago was the 40th anniversary of President Nixon’s dramatic resignation. He did so against his own will, in order to avoid the certainty of impeachment as a result of the Watergate case. This event, together with the traumatic defeat and withdrawal from Vietnam that preceded it, resulted in a dramatic loss of trust in the Executive, followed by strong legislative action to limit its powers. It also revealed the growing partisan polarization that has characterized the politics of the following four decades.Today we may be living the climax of this polarization, as Congress is unable to pass badly-needed legislation on immigration, energy and infrastructure funding, to name a few. Indeed, not even the presence of 40,000 unaccompanied Central American children at the border is sufficiently dramatic to bring about some kind of consensual action. At the same time, President Obama is being sued by the House leadership for abuse of power, and the media are irresponsibly talking about possible impeachment, the ultimate use of legislative power against a democratically elected President.The transformative President has fulfilled or at the very least addressed most of the platform under which he was elected in 2008 and re-elected in 2012. Obstruction in Congress, his own bad foreign policy decisions and constant complaints from the left wing of his own party have resulted in low approval ratings (around 40%) by a frustrated public that has, for the most part, tuned out of politics. This will no doubt have consequences for the coming mid-term elections, when the majority of voters will stay home, giving an advantage to the militant extremes on both sides of the ideological spectrum.Gridlock in government is nothing new. In fact, the fathers of the Constitution preferred Congress to “muddle through” rather than being too pro-active. Incremental, slow change was preferable to sweeping reforms. Yet this 113th Congress, now in its long August recess before its return to a full-fledged electoral campaign in September, is probably unique in its paralysis. There are not only deep divisions between the two Houses, each dominated by one party, but also within the House of Representatives itself, where the GOP has a majority of seats but is so internally divided that it has had to withdraw many of its own leadership-introduced bills for lack of votes from its own party.This Do-Nothing-Congress that left town on August 1st for a five-week recess is the least productive in History: Congressional productivity is down from 151 in the previous 112th Congress to 142; the originally “Do-Nothing Congress” of 1947-48 passed 906 laws.Nothing seems to be sufficiently urgent or dramatic enough to bring the GOP legislators to a consensus, not even the unprecedented border crisis, where 40,000 unaccompanied migrant children from Central America are amassed in military bases and other government agencies at the southern border, awaiting due process. The House leadership was ready to pass a bill to provide a small part of the funding the President had requested to help him address the surge of newly arrived immigrants, but it did not have the votes. The Tea Party, on the other hand, opposed the funding and wanted to introduce its own bill to speedily deport the children and to rescind the President’s authority to decide whether to deport or not certain undocumented immigrants from earlier waves of immigration.Late in the afternoon of their last day in the Capitol when all bags were packed and representatives were ready to leave, Speaker John Boehner announced he was ready to withdraw his bill since he didn’t have the votes, and let the recess begin. But Tea Party favorites Steven King and Michele Bachman demanded a vote on both measures. Finally, at the eleventh hour, Boehner compromised: both bills were introduced and passed by a narrow vote. They are at this point insignificant, and very unlikely to become laws since the Senate will not consider them. But the point was made: the Tea Party’s main goals is not solving any problems, but instead keepconstraining presidential powers to the point of total ineffective government. They are succeeding to a large extent, even if Obama has been quite deft at using his executive authority of implementation to break free from the imposed legislative shackles.Dysfunction in government is the new normalcy in the nation’s capital. These bills were only a modest attempt to deal with the crisis of the day, but the acrimonious debate brought into relief a bigger systemic failure: the inability of Congress, since 2007, to pass a comprehensive overhaul of Immigration law. Once the Senate passed it last summer, it was expected that the House may come up with its own proposal, which would have been a series of smaller bills to solve the problem piecemeal, thereby satisfying different constituencies with a mixture of more border security, more workers’ permits and other special visas, and the granting of legal status to the 11 million undocumented.Unlike the year 2007, when G.W. Bush had expressed support for Comprehensive Immigration Reform legislation but could not muster enough consensus, this time around (2013-2014) it was supposed to be different. For the first time the concept had widespread support from all the very powerful interest groups concerned: corporations, labor unions, the Christian Evangelical right and immigration advocates. But it was halted by the Tea Party in the House and no legislation was passed.It is this vacuum, among others, that the Executive has been trying to fill through administrative measures and executive decrees. The President used his prosecutorial discretion to solve some aspects of the enormously complex issue of dealing with 11 million undocumented immigrants, most of whom have lived and worked in the US for ten, twenty, or even thirty years. One example is the President’s policy directive that provided temporary relief from deportation and study/work authorization to young people brought here illegally by their parents between certain dates, and under certain conditions (DACA). Lately, Obama has expressed some interest in extending DACA to the children’s families, causing more Tea party outrage and increasing their attempts to stop him.To strike a balance and to give more legitimacy to his unilateral decision to solve that part of the problem, the President has applied to the letter the pre-existing immigration law to deport (other) immigrants through the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency. He has deported more immigrants than any other president before him (360,000 in 2013 alone), earning him the sobriquet of “Deporter-in-chief” and the antipathy of immigrant advocate groups.During the latest crisis of children at the border, Speaker Boehner expressed his “frustration and his concern” with the situation, and quite cynically called on Obama to “take steps to secure the border and return the children to their home countries”, adding that the President “didn’t need Congressional action to do that”. Given that the Speaker is suing the President (just a political gesture, since he has no legal standing to do so) for over-stepping his Constitutional powers, his hectoring makes even less sense. In any case, his frustration was misdirected: Obama had asked Congress to approve funding for this operation and a Republican bill was ready to be introduced, but the Speaker himself was struggling to get the Tea Party votes he needed to pass it. This sort of dysfunction is a weakness the Republican Party will need to address in order to succeed in future elections.The November mid-term election will be critical: according to the latest polls, Republicans have around an eighty per cent chance to win the six seats they would need for a majority in the Senate. With both Houses in Republican hands, the President will not only lose the minimum control he now has to shape the agenda but he will also find it very hard to keep in place the policies that he is already implementing.If we add to that the problematic challenges he is now faced with on several foreign policy fronts, none of which can be solved in the short term, a Republican win becomes almost certain, not only in 2014 but also perhaps in the 2016 presidential election. But in order to seal those wins, Republicans will need two fundamental elements they lack now: party unity and a positive agenda. Professor Maria Fornella-Oehninger, Old Dominion UniversityVirginia, U.S.A

Influence of glucocorticoid and betamimetic therapy on milk secretory IgA concentration produced by mothers delivering preterm infants

Peer Reviewe

CONFUSED AND CONFOUNDED, OBAMA GOES TO CONGRESS

In a previous note on these same pages, we made reference to Obama’s unpredictable use of executive power and his tendency to overuse it for certain domestic policies, while deferring to the military and foreign policy establishmenton issues he is ambivalent about, such as the international use of force. We also alluded to his tendency to isolate himself and rely excessively on his own judgment in shaping policy, to the detriment of his relations with staff, cabinet and other leaders. The long-drawn decision to seek Congressional approval before striking Syria is a case study of these proclivities.After resisting calls for intervention in Syria by Senate Republican “hawks”and foreign policy specialists since 2011, a year ago Obama conceded that, in spite of his aversion to intervene in “sectarian struggles”,certain actions such as the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime against the opposition would constitute a “red line” which, once crossed, would automatically bring about an armed response by the United States. This week he had to face the consequences of his own words.Whenrobust evidence of the use of sarin gas by Bashar Al Assad’s forces in rebel occupied territory was produced, the President had no choice but to spendthelast week of the month of Augustfrantically building a case for immediate intervention. Acting simultaneously as Chief Executive, policy shaper and his own spokesman, he used several venues, including an NPR interview, to announce to the American people that the time had come to act.But while Secretary of State John Kerry made a compelling speech on the need to act swiftly to punish the “moral obscenity” committed by the Assad regime, Obama appeared much more circumspect in his appeals to the American people. His early words conveyed both his outrage at the disproportionate actions by Assad as well as his empathy with the war-weary American citizens. In private, he confided he had qualms both about the legality and the political legitimacy of military action. In public, his argument focused on the violation of an international convention prohibiting the use of chemical weapons and the absolutely unavoidable duty to enforce it. But the fact that UN inspectors had not completed their field report on the attack, coupled with the refusal of the UN Security Council to consider armed action, gave him pause and forced him to confront his own doubts once again.In the meantime, momentum was building in the United States where, according to press reports, it was all but certain there would be a military strike to “punish and deter” the Syrian regime, by Labor Day weekend. GOP Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham were vocal in their support of intervention but demanded more than just a punitive strike and showed some impatience towards the President’s pondering an action that should have been decided long ago.Abroad, Turkey, Israel and Saudi Arabia were in favor of the US action. As it is widely known, Russia was against it and that is why the US had to bypass the UN Security Council where Russia has veto power. While NATO allies all offered strong support (indeed, both France and Britain were the first to insist on support for the rebels a year ago), Prime Minister David Cameron was delivered a strong blow when he lost a vote in the House of Commons, with some of his own backbenchers voting against intervention. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, facing a coming election and against the perennial background of German Basic Law constraints, had already told the President that Germany would stand in the sidelines, while offering moral support. The long shadow cast by the Iraqi war around the world once again became evident. But the French President, not required by the Fifth Republic Constitution to consult the legislature, and encouraged by France’s recent successful actions in Mali and Libya, remained firm.By Friday, Obama’s tortured deliberations came to an end as he abruptly changed courses. Against the advice of his National Security and political advisors team, he made a dramatic announcement from the Rose Garden: his decision on the need for a narrow punitive action against Syria had been made, he said, but he had decided to ask for Congressional authorization first. As Commander in Chief, and in spite of the War Powers Resolution of 1973, he is not obligated to do this. He thus appears to be shifting responsibility onto the legislature while simultaneouslybuying some time to explore diplomatic solutions in the upcoming G-20 summer.The cerebral constitutional law professor and the risk- taking politician in him have made a Faustian bargain. If Congress authorizes the use of force, he will have both legal and political cover for his action while at the same time fulfilling his moral duty of punishing a violator of the Chemical Weapons Convention and of Humanitarian law. If they vote No, he can just blame them for his own lack of action and use all the power of the Presidency on his domestic agenda.It is, in any case, a big gamble, one that has the potential of weakening him and turning him into a lame duck for the rest of his Presidency. The GOP is internally divided on many issues, among them foreign policy, where conservative ideologies run the gamut from minimalist /isolationist to neo-cons/regime- change interventionists and all the shades in-between. And the far left in Obama’s own party is against intervention. So there is no guarantee he will get Congressional approval. The cost of losing this vote is enormous: it may set a strong precedent in diminishing Presidential prerogatives.To be fair to the President and his vacillating stance, this is not an easy decision. None of the world leaders have made a compelling public case for a strategic need of intervention in Syria. The proposed limited “punitive” strike will most likely be inconclusive: it will not deter further extreme actions by Assad, who has now been given time to disperse his military assets and capabilities. The strike will not significantly degrade his capacity to fight, and there will be little change in his main goal, namely, to destroy the opposition and regain total control of the country.This is a fight to the end by both sides. If overthrown, Assad and his Alawite supporters (as well as the Christians who have traditionally been under his protection) will be massacred. There are no desirable outcomes in this conflict. The rebels are divided and the biggest group is that ofthe jihadists with strong support of Al Qaeda. While Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Israel are on the side of the United States and want a moderate alternative to the Assad regime, Iran, to an extent Iraq, and Hezbollah in Lebanon are on the dictator’s side (as, incongruously, is Venezuela). The Palestinian group Hamas, previously favoring Assad has now changed sides and is supporting the rebels. So in many ways this is a war by proxy that could become a generalized regional war. There is no indication that the President or anyone else has a political plan or a diplomatic effort in mind for the post-strike scenario.However, US inaction at this time undermines the security of its allies, especially Israel. Even though Netanyahu has adopted a “no comment” stance and hasn’t, accordingly, said a word on this issue, other Israeli politicians are worrying out loud about the implications the US lack of resolve will have on other “red lines”: Will the United States act when Iran crosses the nuclear threshold? Or will Israel find itself facing Iran alone?They bitterly remind themselves of Obama’s speech in Jerusalem, in March this year, when he said in Hebrew: “Atem lo levad” (“You are not alone”). They are very skeptical, now more than ever, that the President will match his lofty rhetoric with action.In the United States the momentum is gone, Congress won’t reconvene until September 9, and the President is using the last week of summer to energetically lobby House and Senate leaders and persuade skeptics through intelligence briefings. Urgent issues in the domestic agenda will thus have to be postponed.What no one, either at home or abroad denies, is that the credibility of the Presidency and with it, that of the United States, is at stake. International support for the operation is unlikely to improve. A negative vote by Congress will further weaken the President and may complicate the White House legislative agenda, where he will have to spend all his political capital and still,perhaps, fall short.In a keynote speech to the National Defense University earlier this year, Obama expressed the need to chart a new way in American foreign policy, one that would end the “perpetual wartime footing” that characterized the post 9-11 era, after G.W. Bush got a virtual blank check from Congress in the use of military force and intelligence gathering. So far, Obama has ended two protracted unpopular wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and it is clear he will not engage in regime change. But a new foreign policy strategy has not crystallized yet. There is no Obama doctrine, no overall framework to guide his decisions and give predictability to his actions.His whole approach to the Middle East, the most explosive region in the planet today, is misconceived. His tepid reaction to the Egyptian situation had already given some approximation of how reluctant he is about taking sides in conflicts in the region. Syrian use of chemical weapons has confirmed his ambivalence and exposed his indecision. At the same time, it has provoked a collapse of American credibility abroad, anduncertainty about its reliability as an ally. Regardless of what follows after this week, his hesitancy will have dire consequences for American foreign policy into the future.The larger problem that looms over the heads of world leaders and that few seem to acknowledge is that this is not about Syria or Egypt or Libya or Yemen or Tunisia as separate conflicts; it is a regional conflagration that has to be addressedcomprehensively, within the larger regional and international context. All major actors, whether it is Europe, Russia, or China and of course the United States, have a stake in the region and it is in their interest to define the rules of the game and together find an overall solution to this predicament