... ministers of Jordan and Egypt visited Syria for the first time in the years of conflict, and the Egyptian president had his first telephone conversation with his Syrian peer. Saudi Arabia, for the first time sent, several planes with humanitarian aid to Syria, whereas Bashar Assad visited Oman for the first time since the inception of the civil war.
Also worth mentioning are the March 13 agreements between Iran and Saudi Arabia, with the two countries deciding to restore diplomatic relations and develop cooperation....
What kind of Syria would we like to see and might we see by March 2031?
On 6 March 2011, the local security services in the small town of Daraa, southern Syria, detained fifteen teenagers painting anti-government graffiti on fences and buildings. During the subsequent ...
... leaders, whose ambitions are, at this historical juncture, under powerful pressure from both within and without; this test may be even more relevant there than in other parts of the crumbling, yet interconnected world.
“Old” internal conflicts in Syria, Libya and Yemen, new-type protest movements demanding a change of the ruling elites (the “everyone means everyone” slogan) in Algeria, Lebanon and Iraq, balancing on the brink of an armed conflict in the Persian Gulf – this chronic instability ...
Framing a quid pro quo in Syria
After more than eight years of conflict in Syria, it is now clear that there won’t be a near-term political transition away from Bashar al-Assad. This is a reality that Europeans, by and large, now accept. This does not mean, however, that Europeans ...
Putin’s Syrian intervention was limited to areas around the port of Tartus and the Latakia air base, both heavily upgraded by Russia. His aim was not a full occupation, but a gradual expansion of a strategic corridor from Damascus to Aleppo. He did not fear US ...
... acquainted with the evils of war who can thoroughly understand the profitable way of carrying it on.” – Sun Tzu
Introduction
On April 6, 2017, US President Donald J. Trump took the unprecedented step of launching a cruise missile strike against a Syrian air base in retaliation for Bashar Assad’s use of poison gas against civilians, including children and infants. The strike came after a small US task force landed in eastern Syria with the stated goal of smashing Islamic State (ISIS). Until that point, Moscow believed Trump was ...
... in Moscow was whether Russia would give in. An immediate change of policy was obviously not on the cards since it is not in Putin's nature to make sudden concessions under pressure. But will he gradually and incrementally pull the rug from under the Syrian president?
According to Russian experts in Moscow, there are multiple reasons why the Kremlin will not. They range from concerns about future chaos in Syria in the aftermath of regime change to the damage that would be inflicted on Russia's reputation ...
Within three days of a bizarre chemical gas poisoning incident in Khan Sheikhoun, Syria, the United States ratcheted up its global judge, jury and executioner role by firing a salvo of Tomahawk missiles on a Syrian airbase that was used to combat Daesh terrorists. No due process or investigation was sought; not even a declaration ...
The Crisis Group recently released a
briefing
on Russia’s partial pull-back of forces from Syria, its implications on the ceasefire as well as on Moscow’s wider strategy in this conflict. Analyzing Russia’s latest actions in Syria, including the ceasefire deal and partial withdrawal of forces, most experts (as well as the Crisis ...
... the Middle East. Ethnic, sectarian, confessional identities, local loyalties and solidarity groups have turned to be much more viable than it could have been expected within a paradigm of a modernity.
EPA/YOUSSEF BADAWI
Boris Dolgov, Omar Mahmood:
The Syrian Conflict: Russian and GCC
Perspectives
Domestic developments in the region were either caused or accompanied by much more militant policies of regional actors and global powers. By the degree of the impact on the situation regional powers have ...
