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This article aims to puzzle why the leading military power of the world, namely the United States, was pushed back from the negotiating table in the Syrian Civil War, and conversely, how and why the world's declining power, namely Russia, became the sole actor in that conflict. The article will try to answer this question from the neoclassical realist perspective. In this perspective, states do not always act rationally. Instead, they can fail because of miscalculations. The United States, in this respect, miscalculated on the Syrian Civil War as well as its domestic politics. In contrast, Russia behaved in accordance with its strategic culture, which resulted in its dominance both in the field and in diplomacy. The systemic stimulus, which is the independent variable, forces both countries to form alliances in the civil war. The domestic actors of both countries, which are the intervening variables, diversified the systemic stimuli in opposite directions. While the US political elite was misguided due to the divided structure, the Russian elite was more unified, which resulted in outcomes in favor of the latter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fact that on September 2, 2010 the Israeli-Palestinian direct talks launched under the U.S. mediation is a new and tame process in the Middle East Peace Process which began in 1991 in Madrid and which couldn't come to a conclusion. The Middle East Peace Process has started to resemble a \"soap opera\" which bores people hereinafter, with its director (the U.S.), its actors and the main issues. In view of the approaches of the sides about the major disagreement issues on the Israel-Palestine problem which goes down in history as a file aging diplomat, we can understand that the talks beginning on September 2, 2010 will not come to a conclusion. The approaches of the sides on the major disagreement issues, give the impression of \"not the peace itself, but the peace process comes true\" on the Israel-Palestine issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A similar kind of relationship at the level of which the U.S.-Israel relations have reached today has almost never be seen in the history. The relationship between these two countries is called a \"special relationship\". In the international politics, there's a basic approach such as a State's setting its objective as protecting its own national benefits in foreign policy. However, when it comes to evaluating the relations with Israel, the fact that the U.S. doesn't take this approach into consideration is understood. The point at which the U.S. - Israel relations have reached is in a level that not only affects these two countries but also the world politics, the Middle Eastern region in particular. Therefore, the relationship between the U.S. and Israel deserves to be emphasized in terms of its level and the effect that it produces. Because, it has been seen that the dimension that has been reached by the historical course of the two countries became a burden not only to Israel's enemies but also to Israel's alliances and even to the U.S. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]