It felt like a fairytale. How else to explain the dramatic fall of the Assads, in the space of days and all without any civilian casualties? Back in December, Syrians had feared that the regime would make a last stand …
Can Kurds survive the new Syria?
From the moment I cross the rickety pontoon bridge from Iraq into Syrian Kurdistan, I feel a deep sense of isolation. The arrivals hall, which offers the only link to the outside world, is falling apart around me. The duty …
Syria will never be unified
The foreign busybodies in the State Department, Foreign Office and the French foreign ministry, who are already now pressing for the reconstruction of a unitary Syrian state, should reflect on the country’s history. Syria was never meant to function as …
The Turkish Left’s love for Assad
Bashar al-Assad, who ruled Syria with an iron fist for 24 years before getting his comeuppance, received silent support from one of the unlikeliest places during his dictatorial rule. Numerous groups in Turkey’s splintered Left, from self-professed Maoists to Stalin …
Will Syria re-open Lebanon’s wounds?
For most of Lebanon’s modern history, the Assads have been as immovable as its mountains. As far back as 1976, early in the Lebanese Civil War, Hafez al-Assad ordered Syrian troops over the border. And there they remained, for 29 …
Will Erdoğan crush the Syrian Kurds?
Syria’s two million Kurds have every reason to loathe Bashar al-Assad. His Baathist regime long repressed their identity, and there are many Kurdish activists among the countless people emerging, dazed and stumbling, from the dictatorship’s dungeons. But even as Kurds …
Will Tehran be next?
Damascus has fallen — something that has as much to do with Iran as with Syria. Tehran had long kept the Assad dictatorship in power, with its Hezbollah militia in Lebanon, the largest non-state army on Earth. But starting in …
The Arab Spring exposed America’s weakness
When Bashar al-Assad touched down in Riyadh last week, to be embraced by the Saudi king on the occasion of Syria’s readmittance to the Arab League, the Syrian War drew to a close, and with it the Arab Spring. His …
Russia will never want peace
I honestly can’t remember the number of times I’ve written about Russian peace talks. I could try to look it up, but I suspect it would only depress me. Ukraine and Syria; tangentially Georgia and, I guess, Chechnya. None of …
