Syria

The Obama administration is now targeting Bashar al-Asad and other top Syrian officials with financial sanctions. The US Treasury Department has extensive abilities to freeze assets and to influence financial institutions. Likely the European Union will follow suit soon Obama came into office wanting better relations with Syria and sending an ambassador. The Arab Spring […]

For those who keep asking why there should be an international intervention in Libya but not in Syria, here is one answer: Russia and China have blocked an attempt to have the United Nations Security Council from making any statement at all about the political repression in Syria, which has left an estimated 350-450 persons […]

You never issue an ultimatum unless you are prepared for war. Syrian President Bashar al-Asad abolished the forty-year-old emergency law on Thursday, and he had dismissed two unpopular governors against whom there had been protests. Then he said that there was no longer any reason for anyone to demonstrate, implying that further demonstrations would be […]

Massive protests have forced the Baathist regime of Bashar al-Asad to lift the state of emergency that has governed the country since 1963. Without the emergency laws, which permit arbitrary arrest and imprisonment, Syria would be governed by the 1973 constitution, including these articles: ‘Article 38 [Expression] Every citizen has the right to freely and […]