Let’s be clear here, Qatar lost in Qusair. It is embarrassing and undermines two years and $3bn of financial support to the rebel movement. And it is time that Qatar began to take some responsibility for things Qaradawi has said, and is saying with regards to Syria.
The potential for arms to be used against Syrian civilians who have suffered most throughout the two years of civil war is not among the primary considerations of the arms-exporting west. One may wonder whether it is of any concern at all.
When the Assad regime is ultimately defeated, Hezbollah will have lost the majority of its military hardware, a significant portion of its forces, and its political clout in Lebanon.
Their actions in Al-Qusayr hurl them far closer to the category of regional militant force, as the architects of a new framework of Middle Eastern skirmishes, in which Sunnis and Shiites become the crucial axis of antagonism, rather than nation states.
While the Geneva talks, if they are actually held, are tipped to fail, a political settlement may well be the only hope, not only for Syria, but also for the region.
The young men of the Lebanese “Islamic Resistance”, who today participate – based on the confirmation of their leader Hassan Nasrallah – in the Syrian massacres, are not aware of what recent history holds of shelter offered, hospitality, and the sharing of pain and dreams.
With the upcoming lifting of the arms embargo for Assad regime opponents in Syria we are back to the old game: Cold War - the USA and the former Soviet Union both offering advanced weapon systems to the belligerent parties (visual montage).
Today’s Sunni/Shiite regional war is the direct product of the Bush/Blair war on Iraq. The divide is all the more dangerous because of the Levant’s confessional mosaic. These events are changing the very nature of the states in the region, and the peoples that lie within them. Where do Palestine’s
In this excerpt from the latest ECFR policy briefing on Syria, the authors argue that a rare moment of opportunity has emerged following the US-Russian agreement to launch peace initiative, Geneva II. Europe and the west should prioritise ratcheting down violence and the threat of regional spill o
A year of living through a war which has transitioned to an unprecedented level of killing and massacres in this country has seen to a fracturing and fractioning of Syrian identity.
What the civil war in Syria has exposed is that the massive political and social transformation, and real regime change under way is led by people themselves. US military involvement serves only to escalate the destruction.
