Category: Syria

The Islamic State: Between Aspirations and Reality

     

“Democracy is stronger than organizations like ISIS,” U.S. President Barack Obama said today, using one of the names for Islamic State. Democracy is why the United States welcomes “people of… Read more »

Repression without Borders: The Long Arm of Authoritarian Regimes

     

Immigrant groups remain subject to authoritarian repression even after they leave their homelands, according to new research by Dr. Dana Moss, a sociologist at the University of Pittsburgh. However, these… Read more »

Democracies are ‘losing terrorism’s war of attrition’

     

Whatever happens after the recapture of Mosul, the future trajectories of al-Qaeda (AQ) and the Islamic State (IS) do not leave cause for optimism, nor do the faulty paradigms that… Read more »

Reclaiming Mosul: concerns about politics the ‘day after’

     

An array of Iraqi forces, backed by a broad international coalition, is closing in on the Islamic State stronghold of Mosul, united in their determination to crush the jihadists but… Read more »

A post-ISIS recovery plan for Syria?

     

With the Iranians and the Russians fully backing Bashar al-Assad in Damascus, it’s clear that the chances of regime change anytime soon are zero. Assuming that Raqqa will be liberated… Read more »

The future of Arab reform: beyond autocrats and Islamists

     

The argument for democratic reform in the Middle East seems harder to make today, despite the evidence for it being clearer, than it was when the Arab Spring sprung, argues… Read more »

How to de-glorify and discredit ISIS

     

How can a genocidal and an apocalyptic group like ISIS become a beacon of hope for segments of excluded and marginalized communities in the West and beyond?  asks Kawa Hassan (above),… Read more »

Imprisoned Uighur scholar given top human rights award

     

A prominent Uighur scholar jailed in China after speaking out against repression in his native Xinjiang was named on Tuesday as the winner of a prestigious international human rights award… Read more »

ISIS propaganda output drops under military pressure

     

The vaunted propaganda operations of the Islamic State, which helped lure more than 30,000 foreign fighters to Syria and Iraq, have dropped off drastically as the extremist group has come… Read more »

Aleppo the new Sarajevo? ’48 Hours of Awakeness’

     

Is Aleppo the new Sarajevo, as French activist intellectual Bernard Henri-Levy claims? Now that a revolution really is needed, those who were fervent are quite cool, the Polish poet Czeslaw… Read more »