In early January 2006, less than a month after I arrived in Iraq as a young U.S. Army lieutenant, I witnessed my first act of violence committed against Iraqi civilians. While on a patrol on a highway 20 km south of Baghdad, a …
sunni
Lebanon’s Sects Game: The Problem With Its Byzantine Political System
The appointment of a new Lebanese Prime Minister illustrates the arcane complexity — and absurdity — of the country’s sectarian politics
As Bashar Assad Shows His Defiance, Syria Nears Its Existential Cliff
If the geological metaphor fashionable in Washington these days can be applied in Damascus, then Syria is moving perilously closer toward an existential cliff. President Bashar Assad on Sunday delivered a dramatic aria of …
Assad’s Roll of the Dice: Is Winter Coming for the Syrian Rebellion?
President Bashar Assad knows his regime can’t win Syria’s civil war — his foreign minister, Farouk al-Sharaa, admitted as much in an interview published last week by a sympathetic newspaper. But nor does he believe he’s about …
Is Syria’s Civil War Entering Its Final Act, or Poised for a New Phase?
The stern warnings by President Barack Obama and other U.S. officials this week that Syria‘s President Bashar Assad would face “consequences” and be “held accountable” for any use of chemical weapons against his own people, has …
Syria’s Opposition Wins Western Backing, But What About Western Weapons?
Syria‘s new opposition leadership structure announced in Qatar on Sunday could mark a turning point in the stalemated 20-month old rebellion against the Assad regime. But it could just as easily prove to be another chimerical …
Syria’s Cease-Fire: A Peace Process for Pessimists
Few expect that the four-day truce in Syria’s civil war scheduled to take effect Friday will hold, much less serve as the prelude to a more sustained peace process.
Is the Glass Half Full for Syria’s Assad?
He may no longer control huge swathes of Syrian territory, but his forces appear nowhere near collapse. Over the past 18 months, at least, the dictator has beaten the odds
Is the Regional Showdown in Syria Rekindling Iraq’s Civil War?
It may have been checked off President Obama’s to-do list, but the Iraq war is far from over.
Dissent Among the Alawites: Syria’s Ruling Sect Does Not Speak with One Voice
Considered heretics by many mainstream Sunnis, the Alawites have long been perceived as a solid bloc of support for their co-religionists in the Assad dynasty. Not so now
Five Reasons Why the Assad Regime Survives
Syria’s conflict has morphed into a civil war whose fault lines and consequences are quite different from other Arab rebellions
Must-Reads from Around the World
In today’s required reading: another massacre in Syria, Japan plans to buy disputed South China Sea islands and communal violence rears its head again in Indonesia.
Syrian Paradox: The Regime Gets Stronger, Even as It Loses Its Grip
As the regime’s ability to govern Syria declines, it is being transformed into a powerful militia that has little incentive to compromise