Division, a word so simple yet characterized by many intricacies has led mankind through its political evolution. The development of the modern nation-state, which was birthed by the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 was based on it. The United States and the Soviet Union threatened to lob nuclear weapons at …
Lebanon, a beautiful but tense country — with two civil wars behind it, has many people on edge these days. A myriad of shifting divisions and alliances, 24 years after the Taif Accord keeps the specter of violence alive. Carl von Clausewitz called war the extension of politics by other …
Next month, March 2013, will mark the second anniversary of the Syrian uprising. This bloody conflict, as I have repeatedly written, has been characterized by the bombing of bread lines, town-wide massacres and burgeoning sectarian attacks. The enormity of the death toll, 70,000 and counting, should elicit shock to even …
The Egyptian revolution could best be described as a pivotal moment in the history of the Arab peoples, and the Middle East more broadly. Inspired by events in Tunisia, the liberal minded youth of Egypt took to the streets in a display of mass defiance. Within days a wide strata …
Yesterday’s strike on a convoy heading from Syria to Lebanon is but one act in an ever constant drama. Israel, for better or for worse, has had a history of violating both the air space and the territorial integrity of neighboring countries. Given that the Jewish State’s geographical …
In my previous two posts I provided what I have come to believe are the most important events and aspects of the Syrian civil war to date. Bashar al-Assad’s country is no more; it has been replaced by a parcelized system. Free Syrian Army (FSA) and jihadist units in the …
For the first part of this yearly roundup, check here The Anatomy of the Syrian Conflict (Part 1)
For my in-depth map of developments during the month of November, a crucial point at which the Free Syrian Army switched to attacking regime soft points in Aleppo and Deir ez …
How does one describe the immense changes in the Syrian conflict this year? Well, a group of rag tag defectors and civilians, beaten so badly in 2011, have transformed into a viable insurgency which has effectively freed anywhere from 40 to 75 percent of the country. Secular and Salafist-leaning rebel …
At thirty-nine years old, Selahattin Demirtas is the Chairman of the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) in Turkish parliament. He has held this position since January 2010 and was first elected to parliament in 2007 as the MP for the Kurdish majority city of Diyarbakir, after which he joined the …
On November 27 the Associated Press published a diagram it received from officials, “of a country critical of Iran’s atomic program.” It allegedly calculates the explosive force of a nuclear weapon, which the sources have labelled, “a key step in developing such arms.” It has been touted …
The imminent fall of the Assad regime in Syria is an event that will not only shape that country, but also its neighbor, Lebanon. A deeply divided society whose cleavages have been widened with the events in Syria, the country has been set on a very disastrous path. On both …
Israel’s attack on Hamas in the Gaza Strip has not elicited a strong response from the Arab world. It is as if the Arab Spring has not yet brought an intense focus on one of the core issues of Arab politics, as many assumed it would. While Egyptian president Mohammad …
The port city of Sidon in Lebanon witnessed an almost unthinkable act today. The Sunni bastion in the south of the country was transformed into the gunfight at the O.K. Corral. Instead of Billy Clanton and Wyatt Earp, today’s belligerents in the shootout were the bodyguard of a …
Dr. Mahmoud Khattab is the Chairman of the Syrian American Alliance. The organization is one of five that make up the Coalition for a Democratic Syria. A Sacramento-based doctor of internal medicine and originally from Damascus, Dr. Khattab’s mission is to help Syrian refugees who have fled their …
It’s that time of year again, the Foreign Policy Association (FPA) has released its “National Opinion Ballot Report” for 2012. The report presents the results of the FPA’s National Opinion Survey, in which 20,623 ballots were returned, the majority of these ballots emanating from Florida, California, New York, …
