Free Syrian Army

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Yara Bayoumi at Reuters reports on the complicated minuet being danced by Russia, the Syrian Air Force, and the United States. The Syrian Air Force was bombing positions of the Syrian Democratic Forces, a US euphemism for the leftist Kurds of the YPG. The US Air […]

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Putin’s End Game in Syria

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The Syrian press is watching Oliver Stone’s interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin and likes what it sees. Syria’s al-Watan (The Nation) reports that Putin’s Syria policy is the complete restoration of central government authority over the entire country, in preparation for a pull-back of Russian […]

Bashar al-Assad

Syria’s forgotten pluralism and why it matters today

contributors

By Andrea Williams | (The Conversation) | – – The Syrian Civil War has been raging for six years. It has killed nearly half a million people and left over 12 million, about half of Syria’s total population, without a home. A few weeks ago, a devastating chemical attack brought this conflict back into the […]

Bashar al-Assad

Syria: to Assad & Kurds go the Spoils; Sunni extremists have Lost

contributors

By Mehmet Ozalp | (The Conversation) | – – The devastating gas attack in Syria, attributed to the Assad regime, and the swift US missile response is a game-changer for all parties involved in the Syrian conflict. This is a complex war, but it helps to look at the key players in three interlocking layers. […]

Bashar al-Assad

Will the US missile strike be the turning point in Syria’s shifting war?

contributors

By Harout Akdedian | (The Conversation) | – – The US has struck the Syrian airbase used to launch a suspected sarin gas attack against Khan Sheikhun that killed more than 80 civilians. US President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson cited the chemical attack as the reason for their country’s first direct […]

Bashar al-Assad

Washington’s Supreme Hypocrisy on Chemical Weapons and Civilian Deaths

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The use of chemical weapons by the Syrian Army in Idlib is an atrocity and the pictures of dead children tug at the heart. But the outrage of American politicians inside the beltway about it draws on the myths of American exceptionalism and Alzheimer’s of the […]

Bashar al-Assad

Has Trump deferred to Russia in Syria?

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Elizabeth Palmer reported from Ankara last Thursday that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had difficult and inconclusive discussions with Turkish president Tayyip Erdogan concerning Syria. After the meeting he said publicly, that the “longer-term status of President (Bashar) Assad will be decided by the Syrian people.” […]

Bashar al-Assad

Why Russia and Regime want all of Aleppo before Trump is sworn in

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – In the past two days, the Syrian Arab Army and its Shiite militia allies (Hizbullah from Lebanon and others from Iraq) has taken a third to forty percent of the Eastern Aleppo pocket. The northeast zone of the pocket has collapsed, with rebel fights apparently declining […]

Bashar al-Assad

Syria Truce holds, despite questions on Humanitarian Aid

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The London pan-Arab daily al-Quds al-`Arabi reports that the truce that began Monday night held during its first twenty-four hours, in the areas designated for a cease-fire by Russia and the United States. The boom of artillery fire faded away at nightfall on Monday. It coincided […]