January 6, 2021

SYRIA’S SILENT WEAPONS

Components of a modern smallpox vaccination kit including the diluent, a vial of Dryvax vaccinia vaccine, and a bifurcated needle.

PDF version available here   The decommissioning of Syria’s vast chemical weapon arsenal has brought its weapons of mass destruction into the media spotlight. Far less attention has been paid to Syria’s admitted biological warfare program, one of the largest in the Middle East today. While Asad’s chemical weapons have been monitored for decades, biological weapons are silent weapons. There are no identifying heat signatures, no activities such as mixing precursor materials … [Read more...]

PROCEEDING WITH CAUTION: THE CURRENT BALANCE OF FORCES IN THE SYRIAN CIVIL WAR AND ISRAELI CONCERNS

Israeli soldiers in an abandoned military outpost overlooking the ceasefire line between Israel and Syria on Tal Hazika near Alonei Habshan.

PDF version available here Aided by Hizballah and Iraqi Shi’a volunteers, the Asad regime scored significant gains in the civil war in Syria in the first months of 2014.  The regime has completed its re-conquest of the Qalamoun mountains and driven the rebels out of Homs. These gains constitute a consolidation by the Asad regime of its area of control in Syria, which runs from Damascus to the western coastal area, and now includes all the country’s provincial capitals with the … [Read more...]

TURKEY’S TWISTS AND TURNS ON SYRIA

PDF version available here Since 2008, Turkey has gone from supporting the Bashar al-Asad regime, to encouraging Asad to undertake democratic reforms, to shifting to a policy of regime change (RC)--a full 180-degree turn in less than three years. Given Turkey’s twists and turns, is it possible for Turkey to reverse course again, as Asad consolidates his victories on the ground, and effectively switch sides in the interest of reestablishing its economic links with Syria? This article … [Read more...]

THE SHI’I CRESCENT’S PUSH FOR REGIONAL HEGEMONY AND THE SUNNI REACTION

PDF version available here In response to the September 11 attacks, the United States occupied Iraq. Baghdad effectively ended up in the hands of Iran, thus leading to the formation of the Shi’i Crescent. Riyadh has been leading the Sunni crusade to derail the march of Shi’ism. At the same time, to protect its nuclear facilities, Tehran has made Hizballah its Mediterranean defense line and Damascus its arms courier. The existence of an atomic bomb component in Iran’s nuclear … [Read more...]

THE RESURRECTION OF SYRIAN KURDISH POLITICS

Kurds showing their support for the PYD in Afrin, Syria during the conflict, August 2012.

PDF version available here This article examines the current political landscape of the Kurdish region in Syria, the role the Kurds have played in the ongoing Syrian civil war, and intra-Kurdish relations. For many years, the Kurds in Syria were subjected to discrimination at the hands of the Ba’th regime and were stripped of their basic rights.[1] During the 1960s and 1970s, some Syrian Kurds were deprived of citizenship, leaving them with no legal status in the country.[2] Although … [Read more...]

FRAGMENTED SYRIA: THE BALANCE OF FORCES AS OF LATE 2013

An FSA fighter engaged in a shootout in Aleppo, Syria (November 2012).

PDF version available here Syria today is divided de facto into three identifiable entities. These three entities are: first, the Asad regime itself, which has survived all attempts to divide it from within.  The second area is the zone controlled by the rebels.  In this area there is no central authority.  Rather, the territory is divided up into areas controlled by a variety of militias.  The third area consists of majority-Kurdish northeast Syria.  This area is under the control … [Read more...]

Syrian Rebels Say: We Demand Radical Islamism; U. S. Says: We Can’t Hear You!

barry-rubin

Can it be more obvious? Thirteen Syrian rebel groups--including the most important in Aleppo and Damascus--demand an Islamist state in Syria and say they don’t care what the official rebel, U.S.-backed politicians say. By the way, only one of these groups is an al-Qaida group, Jabhat al-Nusra. There is also the large Salafi Islamist group, Harakat Ahrar al-Sham al-Islamiya. The others include the powerful Liwa al-Tawhid (Aleppo) and Liwa al-Islam. Both groups operated as part of … [Read more...]

THE MAIN KURDISH POLITICAL PARTIES IN IRAN, IRAQ, SYRIA, AND TURKEY: A RESEARCH GUIDE

Kurdistan is divided, and the Kurdish people are not united geographically. They are split among numerous political parties and institutions in several different countries. Various early attempts to build Kurdish national movements after 1918 failed. Modern Kurdish parties began to emerge after World War II.  In the post-Cold War era, Kurdish movements have gained momentum politically, economically, socially, as well as at the regional and international levels. The current period may well be a … [Read more...]

THE POPULAR FRONT FOR THE LIBERATION OF PALESTINE-GENERAL COMMAND (PFLP-GC) AND THE SYRIAN CIVIL WAR

As the Asad regime’s most loyal Palestinian proxy, the PFLP-GC’s role in the conflict in Syria is of great importance. Currently, the group’s interests center on countering Syrian rebel forces in Syria and their allies in Lebanon. In this role, the PFLP-GC has suffered a number of significant losses, and for the first time in its existence is being pressed in all areas it operates. This article will focus on the Syrian Civil War’s effects on the PFLP-GC and what the future may hold for … [Read more...]

TWILIGHT LEBANON, 1990-2011

William Harris' Lebanon: A History, 600-2011 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011)

This article is an extract from William Harris, Lebanon: A History 600-2011 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011). Surveying Lebanon's communities through fourteen centuries and the modern country from its origins after 1800, the book closes with today's downbeat Lebanon. The extract features a twilight zone, between Lebanon's devastating war period of 1975-1990 and the implosion of neighboring Syria in 2011-2012. After 1990, the authoritarian Syrian regime commanded Lebanon, faltering in 2005 … [Read more...]