Syria
الجمهورية العربية السورية
A Syrian Peace Deal on Assad's Terms
Tony Karon, Time
Bosnia Offers Lessons for Syria Conflict
Richard Cohen, Washington Post
Which Syrian Opposition Should We Support?
David Schenker, TNR
Arab States Redraw the Map of Alliances
Jamal Khashoggi, The National
Annan's Plan: No Soft Landing But More War
Michael Young, Daily Star
That which has not been achieved on the battlefield can rarely be achieved at the negotiation table, and the harsh reality facing Syria’s opposition is that the regime of Presi...(full article)
Much of what characterized the Bosnian war, including hideous barbarity, is now occurring in Syria. Once again, we are seeing sectarian butchery. Once again, we are confronted wi...(full article)
A year into the Syrian uprising against Bashar Al-Assad, the dysfunctional nature of Syrian opposition politics isn’t exactly news. But the resignation last month of Syrian dis...(full article)
While Syria's army cruelly and stupidly shells its own people and storms its cities, the so-called "axis of resistance" stretching from Tehran to Damascus is falling apart. Said ...(full article)
The problem is that most Syrians are wise to the dangers of the Annan plan. Many prefer civil war to more Assad rule, compounded by barbarous retribution if the Syrian president re...(full article)
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Most Recent Articles
Syrian Rebels Up Against Much More than Assad - Charles Rizk, Daily Star
China, Russia and Iran support for Bashar Assad makes a Western military intervention in Syria impossible, given the likely catastrophic repercussions for all concerned. In the e...
The Bad-Good Idea of Removing Assad - Victor Davis Hanson, NRO
Intervention, even if by air or through stealthy military assistance, requires some sort of strategy, and right now the United States does not seem to have any coherent one. We e...
Syria Needs an Economic Revolution - Jihad Yazigi, Bitter Lemons
The geography of the Syrian uprising is a reflection of the significant economic and social crisis faced by large segments of the Syrian population since the early 1980s. While t...
Lebanon Paying for Hezbollah Brinkmanship - Michael Young, National
The continuing tension in Lebanon has raised fears that the country may be engulfed by what is fast nearing a civil war in Syria. That outcome may occur, but it is also at odds wit...
Syria's Neighbors Are Growing Restless - David Ignatius, Washington Post
The Middle East sometimes resembles a string of detonators wired to explode together - and this seems especially true now of Syria and its neighbors....
NATO's Lack of Action Is a Good Thing - Daniel Larison, The Week
An international summit in Chicago produces few results. But that's better than NATO endorsing a boneheaded intervention in Syria....
Obama's Failure to Admit Failure on Syria - Tony Badran, NOW Lebanon
A recent article in the Washington Post has once again spurred speculation about a possible shift in the Obama administration's Syria policy. Citing a discussion with anonymous...
Lebanon Powerless to Keep Out Syria's War - Harvey Morris, Rendezvous
Lebanon is where other people go to fight their wars. The small Mediterranean republic has been a proxy battleground for its regional neighbors for much of its 70-year history. It ...
Why Assad Shouldn't Worry About NATO - Elise Labott, CNN
As NATO leaders discuss the winding down of its 10-year war in Afghanistan and pat themselves on the back for helping in the bloody ouster of Moammar Gadhafi in Libya, there is...
The Terrorists Ruining Syria's Revolution - Aaron Zelin, Foreign Policy
This level of excitement, which has not been seen in jihadi circles since the height of the Iraq war, can partly be attributed to the sectarian nature of the struggle: Jihadis do n...
Colonial Threads May Strangle Sectarian Syria - Charles Glass, National
The rebellion against tyranny is turning into a sectarian and class war that could destroy Syria for a generation and drive out those with the talent, education or money to thriv...
NATO's Blind Spot on Intervention in Syria - Washington Post
If anything, NATO has more of an interest in defusing Syria's crisis than Libya's. Turkey, a NATO member, is on Syria's border and has seen violence spill into its territory. Oth...
Turkey Arming, Training Syria Rebels - Michael Weiss, Telegraph Blogs
The weekend before last I was in Hatay province, in southern Turkey, interviewing Syrian rebels and activists, who all complained of the lack of foreign assistance in toppling th...
Syria's War Comes to Beirut - Mitchell Prothero, Foreign Policy
The streets of Beirut's working-class Sunni neighborhoods started filling up with all the signs of trouble by about 9 p.m. on Sunday night. Young men on scooters clustered together...
World's Least Effective Conflict Troubleshooter - Colum Lynch, Turtle Bay
In December 2011, Sudanese Gen. Mohamed Ahmed al-Dabi led an Arab League mission into Syria to monitor abuses during the country's popular uprising. But the mission quickly failed,...
Obama's Language of Intervention - Leon Wieseltier, The New Republic
The problem with a moral vocabulary about politics and policy is that it not only makes politicians and policymakers feel bold, it also demands that they act bold. Eloquence create...
Turning the Tide in Syria - Sen. Joseph Lieberman, Washington Post
More than nine months after President Obama declared that Bashar al-Assad must go, it is clear that neither diplomacy nor sanctions alone will dislodge the Syrian dictator. On th...
Putin Holds Key to Ending Syrian Bloodshed - Bloomberg
Russia's leaders have been disgracefully cynical throughout the Syrian uprising. They have armed and supported President Bashar Al-Assad's regime, and they provide diplomatic cover...
Syria's War Enters Third Gear - Michael Young, NOW Lebanon
In a bombshell revelation, both literally and figuratively, the Washington Post reported this week that weapons were reaching the Syrian opposition, and that the process was bein...
Turkey in the Syrian Hot Seat - Crown Center for Middle East Studies
As the ongoing humanitarian disaster unfolds in Syria, Turkey is increasingly placed in the international hot seat. With strong strategic and economic ties to Syria, the government...
U.S. Playing a Waiting Game on Syria - Elise Labott, CNN
Fifteen months into the crisis in Syria, and the Obama administration is, as one U.S. official describes it, in "a holding pattern," waiting for Russia to abandon its support for ...
U.S. Not Thinking Syriously - Tony Badran, NOW Lebanon
As the situation in Syria drags on, the international community remains opposed to intervention against the Assad regime. In the meantime, some in the US continue to pin hope on ...
U.S., Allies Send War Games Message to Syria - Peter Goodspeed, Nat'l Post
More than 12,000 special forces troops from 19 countries, including many who saw combat last year in Libya, will be swarming all over Jordan for the next two weeks in the largest...
The Risks of a Syria Spillover - Andrew Exum, World Politics Review
Over the past week, we have seen the first real case of sectarian violence spilling over from Syria into neighboring Lebanon. In clashes in and around the northern Lebanese city of...
Obama's Foreign Policy Failures - Gideon Rachman, Financial Times
President Barack Obama ran as the anti-George Bush candidate. So it is ironic that his signature achievement overseas - the killing of Osama bin Laden - is one Bush would have b...
Can Obama Save NATO from Disaster in Chicago? - Pavel & Joyner, CSM
The 2010 NATO Summit in Lisbon produced a bold vision for NATO's future. With one week to the Chicago summit, not nearly enough progress has been made. To avoid the Chicago summi...
'Safe Zone' in Syria Would Lead to War - Aaron David Miller, Bloomberg
Having proposed more than my fair share of bad ideas during more than 20 years in government service, I know one when I see it. And the proposal by various media commentators and p...
A Window into Syria's Failing Revolt - Hassan Hassan, The National
If the Syrian opposition's failure to forge a truly inclusive national movement can be traced to one geographic area, then that failure shows up most clearly in Syria's east. For i...
Pillars of the Syrian Regime Are Falling - Joshua Landis, Syria Comment
The main pillars of the Syrian regime are collapsing one after the other. The closing of the University of Aleppo signifies the beginning of the end for public education. It will...
How the Arab Spring Defeated al-Qaeda - Fawaz Gerges, The Daily Beast
In his newly released papers, Osama bin Laden recognized the gravity of the loss of Muslim opinion, though he was powerless and sidelined to halt the decline....
Syria's Terrorist Attacks Weaken Real Opposition - The National
The scenes of carnage on the streets of Damascus on Thursday, following two car bombings in the heart of the city, are unfortunately becoming familiar after the 14-month clampdow...
Urban Warfare, the Modern Arab Scourge - Rami Khouri, Daily Star
The two consecutive massive explosions outside a Syrian security building on Thursday morning marked another awful milestone in the 14-month-old conflict in Syria. They also refl...
America's Perilous Passivity on Syria - Washington Post
The Obama administration has reached an ignominious impasse on Syria. Administration spokesmen now publicly recognize that the United Nations diplomatic initiative it has backed ...
Prepare for the Long Haul in Syria - Michael Young, Daily Star
One thing that the Lebanese can usually do with some precision is predict stalemate. Their own conflict between 1975 and 1990 was one long, debilitating lesson in destructive dea...
No Viable Syria Option as Peace Plan Falters - Gulf News
The twin blasts in Damascus, which led to dozens of deaths, including those of civilians, have not just managed to kill aimlessly, they have also dealt a blow to Kofi Annan's pea...
Syria Faces Chaos as Annan Mission Crumbles - Dawn
Former chief of the global body and the UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan has echoed Mr Ban’s sentiments as violence continues to rage in the Levant, despite the UN-sponsored t...
Why Kofi Annan Failed in Syria - Salman Shaikh, Foreign Policy
The world is learning hard lessons in Syria. The United States has already admitted that the mission of U.N. and Arab League special envoy Kofi Annan is likely to fail, and U.S. Se...
Obama Hits Syria with Blast of Adverbs - Jeffrey Goldberg, Bloomberg
The Obama administration hasn't helped to arm the rebels, nor has it created safe havens for persecuted dissidents. But it has done something far more important: It has provided th...
Lebanon Walks the Syria Tightrope - Roula Khalaf, Financial Times
A year ago, Lebanon was bracing for trouble. With Syria’s uprising raging next door – and politics in Beirut divided along pro and anti-Syrian lines – many assumed it wou...
Syria a Strategic, Humanitarian Scandal - Barry Rubin, Jerusalem Post
US policy toward Syria is turning into a scandal on both strategic and humanitarian grounds. The next three months will be wasted in a toothless observer effort during which time...
Why Is Turkey Doing So Little in Syria? - Omer Taspinar, Today's Zaman
What are the driving factors of Turkey's Syria policy? The same question could be asked by focusing on why Turkey is so cautious and reluctant to take unilateral military action in...
Assad Resorts to Sectarian Card - Jackson Diehl, World Affairs Journal
On March 6, 2011, a group of fifteen schoolboys in the southern Syrian town of Daraa were arrested by local security forces. Aged ten to fifteen, the boys were caught spray-painti...
The Anarchy Factor in Syria - Itamar Rabinovich, Toronto Star
The failure of the Obama administration, its Western allies and several Middle East regional powers to take bolder action to stop the carnage in Syria is often explained by their f...
Annan's Syria Plan Needs Military Teeth - Michael Young, The National
There is much to criticise in the plan devised by Kofi Annan, the United Nations-Arab League envoy on Syria. However, Mr Annan's intention to end the Syrian carnage is sound and ...
Inside Syria's Armed Revolt - Combating Terrorism Center
protests to the current climate where parts of the country are engaged in armed conflict pitting the Free Syrian Army (FSA) against the Alawite-dominated security forces of Preside...
Syria Will Be Messy for a While - Andrew Exum, World Politics Review
A few weeks ago, I met a friend from Damascus for coffee. He had just arrived from Syria a few weeks earlier, and I was curious to hear how he was adjusting to life in the United S...
America's Islamist Allies in Syria - John Rosenthal, National Review
While the Obama administration's burgeoning contacts with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt continue to cause controversy, the administration's policy of growing cooperation with t...
Assad's Logic Turns Syria into Lebanon - Faisal al Yafai, The National
The younger Assad has tried to do in Homs what his father did in Hama. In many cases, the tactics - surrounding and besieging the city, using devastating force in civilian areas ...
U.S. Indispensable But Invisible on Syria - Jackson Diehl, Washington Post
For a year, a chorus of pundits has been proclaiming that the Arab Spring has ushered in a new era in the Middle East in which the United States no longer is the “indispensabl...
Turkey Has Reasons to Fear Arab Spring - Ersin Kalaycioglu, Bitter Lemons
When the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi in Sidi Bouzid led to an avalanche of protests in Tunisia in January 2011, nearly the entire Arab world began to rock with popular upri...
About Syria
- Syrian Arab Republic
- Population: 20,178,485 (57th)
- Area Size: 71,500 sq mi (88th)
- GDP: $99.06 billion (66th)
- Currency: Syrian pound (SYP)
- Official Language: Arabic
- Capital City: Damascus
- Largest City: Aleppo