Syria

Who Benefits After US Airstrikes in Syria?

By Faysal Itani

US airstrikes against ISIS have so far focused on its positions in Deir Ezzor, Hasaka, and Raqqa provinces—the latter being the capital province of the so-called Caliphate—and include Raqqa city, Tabqa, Ain Issa, Deir Ezzor city, and Tel Abyad.

The US Begins Bombing ISIS: Will President Obama’s Strategy Work?

The ‘Islamic State’ Cannot Be Destroyed with Syria’s Assad in Power, Fred Hof Says  As the United States opens a campaign of airstrikes against the brutal militants of ISIS, Atlantic Council Senior Fellow Fred Hof says the US aim of destroying the group will require the overthrow of Syria’s also-brutal president, Bashar al-Assad. Removing the […]

Fighting the Islamic State in Syria

By Frederic C. Hof

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has shared with the world his deep concern over publicly stated US intentions to attack Islamic State positions in Syria “without interaction with the Syrian government.”

The Dual Threats to Western Values

By Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Wall Street Journal

The abhorrent beheading of two American journalists and a British aid worker shocked the world. So did the tragic downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine.

Are We Giving ISIS Too Much Credit?

Ramzy Mardini, nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East, recently wrote in The Washington Post about the possibility of the Obama administration’s overestimation of the threat posed by the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS). It’s an interesting question.

We Can’t Destroy ISIS Without Destroying Bashar al Assad First

By Frederic C. Hof

On Wednesday evening, President Obama took 14 minutes to articulate, in clear and persuasive language, a counter-terrorism strategy “to degrade and ultimately destroy the terrorist group known as ISIL.”