Syria

Inside Assad’s Playbook: Time and Terror

By Bassam Barabandi and Tyler Jess Thompson

Early in my career as a Syrian diplomat, I learned to respect the strategic planning of the Assads. One clear memory is from 2007, during a visit from Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki. I remember sitting behind a two-way mirror in a room adjacent to the banquet hall at the Four Seasons Damascus.

Salvaging What Remains of the Nation State: The Missing Example of Egyptian Democracy

By Amr Hamzawy

Contrary to regimes in other Arab states in the Levant and the Gulf, the Egyptian government has never undermined Arab identity by spreading ideas of a dichotomy between Sunni and Shiite, of a conflict between Sunni-dominated areas and those living in the Shiite crescent, or of a conflict between Arabs and non-Arabs living in the […]

Which Way Now For US Policy Toward Syria?

By Frederic C. Hof

Is American policy toward Syria now at a turning point? Has the eruption of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) from bases in Syria into Iraq convinced President Barack Obama to change course? If so, in which direction?

Syria: Lesser of Two Evils?

By Frederic C. Hof

Three distinguished American ex-diplomats—Ryan Crocker, William Luers, and Thomas Pickering—wrote on July 12 in The Washington Post, “In Syria, the choice for Bashar al-Assad’s government is either to turn its military power against the Islamic State or to continue to kill fellow Syrians…

Syria: Should the West Work With Assad?

By Frederic C. Hof

The combination of the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) running amok in Iraq and the appearance of an Assad regime military victory in western Syria have added octane to arguments that Washington should forego its step-aside guidance to Bashar al-Assad.

Ambassadors Rapp About Syria

With more than 162,000 killed in Syria’s ongoing and brutal conflict, the war has exacted a human cost that now surpasses the atrocities in former Yugoslavia & Sierra Leone. Stephen J. Rapp, Ambassador-at-Large of the US State Department’s Office of Global Criminal Justice, spoke with Ambassador Fred Hof, senior fellow with the Rafik Hariri Center for the […]