The forces of democracy and the moral gains of the liberal world order have given way to great-power conflict and the new autocracy, while the Syrian war reveals the unsettling return… Read more »
Nearly seven years of war are often blamed for hardening local ethnic and religious hostilities in Syria, but sectarianism is nothing new in that scarred land — its cornerstones were… Read more »
As the campaigns to wrest the Islamic State from the territory it held in Iraq and Syria near completion, new conflicts may arise if old political arrangements prevail, according to… Read more »
It is a misconception to suggest that a military campaign is enough to defeat the Islamic State, argues Ibrahim al-Assil, a fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington and a founding… Read more »
The democratic world failed Syria, argues Fadi Azzam, a Syrian writer and the author of the novel Sarmada. “I don’t mean the West’s politicians, foreign ministers and generals. I mean… Read more »
The Syrian government executed well-known internet activist Bassel Khartabil (left) in 2015, Khartabil’s wife and Amnesty International said on Tuesday, CNN reports. His death is a reminder of the cruel… Read more »
Forty-one-year-old Radwan Ziadeh’s résumé is enough to make a Washington overachiever blush, notes Suzanne Nossel, executive director of the Pen American Center and former deputy assistant secretary of state for… Read more »
The announcement of the so-called caliphate was a high point for the extremist fighters of the Islamic State. Their exhibitionist violence and apocalyptic ideology helped them seize vast stretches of… Read more »
By killing so many Syrians, President Bashar al-Assad also killed the dream of democracy, as well as for plenty of people elsewhere in the Arab world, notes Kamel Daoud, the author… Read more »
A prominent Syrian dissident has been told he cannot get political asylum in the United States because he organized a conference with Syrian opposition groups — even though the American… Read more »