From the category archives:

Syria

Drums of war: Israel and the “axis of resistance”

August 2, 2010

In a new report, the International Crisis Group warns that the situation in the Levant, four years after the last war between Israel and Hezbollah, is exceptionally quiet and uniquely dangerous.
Of all the explanations why calm has prevailed in the Israeli-Lebanese arena since the end of the 2006 war, the principal one also should be [...]

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The shifting sands of state power in the Middle East

June 30, 2010

In The Washington Quarterly, Alastair Crooke writes:
In his commendably candid interview with Time in January 2010, President Barack Obama noted that managing politics in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict “is just really hard.” The president, however, might well have been speaking about the Middle East as a whole. It is not just the Israeli-Palestinian track that has [...]

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Syria’s new alliances

June 21, 2010

At Foreign Policy, Helena Cobban writes:
From 2003 to 2008, when the Bush White House was working hard to encircle and isolate Syria, with a definite view to overthrowing the Asad regime, Damascus’s strengthening tie to NATO member Turkey provided what regime insiders have described as “almost literally, a lifeline for us.”
Today, Syria’s relationship with Turkey [...]

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Syria’s Bashar al-Assad warns of Middle East war

June 17, 2010

The BBC’s Middle East editor, Jeremy Bowen interviewed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad who says Israel’s raid on the Gaza aid flotilla has increased the risk of war in the Middle East.

A few days before the Israeli attack on the Mavi Marmara, Charlie Rose did a full length interview with the Syrian president which is well [...]

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Hezbollah’s coalition partner meets Obama

May 23, 2010

At the pro-Israeli Washington Institute for Near East Policy, David Schenker writes:
On Monday, Lebanese prime minister Saad Hariri will visit Washington for a meeting with President Obama. In announcing the meeting, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs called it “a symbol of the close and historic relationship between Lebanon and the United States.” Indeed, between [...]

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Russia’s Middle East moves

May 13, 2010

While Israel, Iraq and Afghanistan are like lead weights that limit the flexibility of the United States in the Middle East, other powers are now taking advantage of Washington’s inability to function as an agent of change.
After Russian President Dmitry Medvedev visited Turkey this week, commentator Semih Idiz wrote:
[I]f U.S. President Barack Obama’s visit to [...]

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American hypocrisy on weapons in the Middle East

March 2, 2010

Haaretz reports:
The U.S. administration has asked Syrian President Bashar Assad to immediately stop transferring arms to Hezbollah. American officials made the request during a meeting Friday with the Syrian ambassador to Washington.
Al-Hayat reports Hillary Clinton sent a message to Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri on the need to curtail arms smuggling to Hezbollah. “Not a [...]

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US can’t get no satisfaction from Syria and Iran

February 27, 2010

At his blog, Syria Comment, Joshua Landis writes:
President Bashar al-Assad and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was in Damascus today, threw down the gauntlet. Only the day before Hilary Clinton warned Syria “to begin to move away from the relationship with Iran,” and stop supporting Hizbullah, Hamas, and ex-Baathists in Iraq. For several years, Syria has been [...]

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Why the U.S. is back on the road to Damascus

February 8, 2010

Time magazine on the new phase in US-Syrian relations:
Unlike many U.S. embassies in the Arab world that have been forced by security concerns to move from the center of capital cities to fortress-like suburban compounds, the Damascus embassy still occupies prime real estate — just a stone’s throw from the residence of Syrian President Bashar [...]

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On Israel-Palestine, no more of the same

February 3, 2010

Yossi Alpher:
President Obama and Mr. Mitchell must recognize that in the current regional strategic lineup, Syria is more relevant than Palestine. Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, declares himself ready to deal. A Syrian-Israeli process has a better chance of getting underway than a Palestinian-Israeli process. A successful Syrian-Israeli effort offers the United States, Israel and the [...]

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Lebanon drama adds act with leader’s trip to Syria

December 22, 2009

Lebanon drama adds act with leader’s trip to Syria
By Robert F Worth, New York Times, December 21, 2009
In any other part of the world, a new prime minister’s visit to a neighboring country would be a fairly routine event. But Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s trip to Syria over the weekend has been treated here as [...]

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Relations with Turkey kindle hopes in Syria

December 15, 2009

Relations with Turkey kindle hopes in Syria
By Robert F Worth, New York Times, December 15, 2009
Ever since Syria and Turkey lifted their visa restrictions in September, Turkish visitors have poured into this picturesque northern city. Hawkers in Aleppo’s ancient souk now call out to shoppers in Turkish, and cross-border commerce has soared. The two countries [...]

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Snubbed by Europe, now Turkey looks to the East

October 21, 2009

Snubbed by Europe, now Turkey looks to the East
By Emile Hokayem, The National, October 20, 2009
The accession to power of the Justice and Development Party (AKP), a moderate Islamist organisation, provided the domestic impulse to redefine the country’s approach to the Middle East. Under the AKP, Turkey is rediscovering its eastern identity, combining it with [...]

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