With the upcoming lifting of the arms embargo for Assad regime opponents in Syria we are back to the old game: Cold War - the USA and the former Soviet Union both offering advanced weapon systems to the belligerent parties (visual montage).
Today’s Sunni/Shiite regional war is the direct product of the Bush/Blair war on Iraq. The divide is all the more dangerous because of the Levant’s confessional mosaic. These events are changing the very nature of the states in the region, and the peoples that lie within them. Where do Palestine’s
In this excerpt from the latest ECFR policy briefing on Syria, the authors argue that a rare moment of opportunity has emerged following the US-Russian agreement to launch peace initiative, Geneva II. Europe and the west should prioritise ratcheting down violence and the threat of regional spill o
A year of living through a war which has transitioned to an unprecedented level of killing and massacres in this country has seen to a fracturing and fractioning of Syrian identity.
What the civil war in Syria has exposed is that the massive political and social transformation, and real regime change under way is led by people themselves. US military involvement serves only to escalate the destruction.
The final balance of the war has not yet tipped against the regime and, if and when it does, no ‘red-line’ will stop Assad from using chemical weapons on a scale that would make Halabja look like a small incident. Will Obama prevent another tragedy?
Roger Owen, professor of Middle East history at Harvard University talks about Syrian rebels’ narratives and current US strategies. Interview.
The outcome of the Syrian crisis, no matter what that might be, will delimit the new Middle East in a way that will affect the entire world—not just Syria and the region
The intermingling of sports, politics and identity in the region makes it too important to be overlooked.
The reality is that opposition militias and the official army have reached a military stalemate – one step forward and one step back as progress on one front is checked by loss and retreat on another.
A comprehensive understanding of how, why and when opposition groups in civil war engage in civilian governance must have important policy implications for outsiders engaging or toying with engaging in Syria.
