Arab World

By Maja Zivanovic and Jean Fernand Koena ( RFE/RL ) – Russia is reducing its military footprint in Syria and shifting some of its assets from the Middle Eastern country to Africa, flight data and satellite imagery analyzed by RFE/RL appear to show. Moscow seems to have withdrawn a significant amount of military equipment from its […]

Hizbullah

Iran’s Axis Crumbles as Hezbollah Falters and Assad Falls.

Foreign Policy in Focus

Iran faces a sobering recalibration of its regional ambitions

Featured

Syria’s New Fundamentalist Government: Women “biologically” Unsuited to Politics, Universities to be Segregated

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Obeida Arnaout, the spokesman for the Sunni fundamentalist Levant Liberation Council (Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham or HTS) gave an interview on Wednesday with the Lebanese Al-Jadid channel that provoked a firestorm of protest among Syrian women and, well, non-fundamentalists. He pledged, “There will be no imposition of the hijab on the […]

Syria

The Takedown of Bashar Assad has an Impact on Many in the U.S. Here’s how

Ibrahim Al-Marashi

( San Diego Union Tribune ) – Syrian refugees in El Cajon danced in the streets upon hearing about the Dec. 7 collapse of the Assad dynasty, which hailed from the Shi’a Alawite minority and ruled the majority Arab Sunni population of Syria for more than 50 years. Nevertheless, there are also Syrians who stayed […]

Syria

Why Syria’s Reconstruction may Depend on the Fate of its Minorities

The Conversation

By Ramazan Kılınç, Kennesaw State University (The Conversation) – Tens of thousands of minorities fearing persecution have fled Syria since its takeover by the Sunni Islamist group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham on Dec. 8, 2024. While the group has promised to respect all ethnic and religious minorities under its rule, human rights advocates have urged caution. […]

Donald Trump

Trump: Turkey’s Erdogan staged “Hostile Takeover” of Syria using HTS Proxies, and is the “Victor”

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Donald J. Trump held an impromptu press conference at Mar-a-Lago on Monday. In the course of his remarks, he said a couple of things about the Middle East, Informed Comment’s beat. Since he’ll be back in the White House in about a month, these observations give some clue as to […]

Bashar al-Assad

What the Fall of Assad says about Putin’s Ambitions for Russia’s Great-Power Status

The Conversation

By Stefan Wolff, University of Birmingham (The Conversation) – The lightning-fast collapse of the Assad regime in Syria has sent shock waves across the Middle East. The disposal of the dictator whose family had ruled the country with an iron fist for more than half a century has triggered a potentially seismic shift in the […]

Featured

Iraq’s Barzani hails Syrian Leader’s Assurances on future of Syrian Kurds

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The fall of the al-Assad regime in Syria has broached again the issue of the largely Kurdish Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) and its relationship to the new government. Many Kurds are fearful for their future, as Euronews reports. The officers of the new government have said […]

Syria

The Turkish Role in Assad’s Downfall: By supporting the rebels who overthrew the Syrian leader has Ankara bitten off more than it can chew?

Foreign Policy in Focus

By Philip Balboni | ( Foreign Policy in Focus ) – After tenaciously holding on to power for more than a decade of war, the government of Bashar al-Assad crumbled in two weeks of limited fighting. Overwhelmed by a surprise blitzkrieg assault, the Syrian army seemed to melt away in the face of a surprisingly […]