سوريا

A reliable supply of freshwater is a prerequisite for sustainable socioeconomic development, as well as for sociopolitical stability and human prosperity, especially in semi-arid and arid regions of the world. The Middle East and North Africa’s freshwater resources are under immense pressures and are facing significant risks to their sustainability due to overexploitation, climate change, and interstate competition over their use that extends beyond the region’s boundaries.

Traditionally, Syria has not been a strategic priority for China. Nor is it today. However, this does not mean that Beijing has been indifferent to the wide-ranging adverse effects of Syria’s disastrous civil war or to the opportunities that its postwar rebuilding might present. China’s Syria policy derives from its broader security and economic interests in the region. Accordingly, China’s two primary policy aims are 1) maintaining a constructive relationship with a government in Damascus that is stable, friendly, and capable of preventing the spread of transnational jihadist activity from its territory; and 2) developing an economic partnership that is compatible with and in furtherance of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). This article examines how China has pursued these aims during the eight-year Syrian conflict.

In this week’s Monday Briefing, MEI experts Mirette F. Mabrouk, Charles Lister, Gonul Tol, and Alex Vatanka provide analysis on recent and upcoming events including Egypt’s engagement with Africa to boost trade and investment, the reshuffling of leadership of Syria’s security apparatus, the firing of Turkey’s central bank governor, and Russia’s positioning to act as mediator between Iran and the Gulf states.

Violence has been flaring up at an alarming rate in the southern Syrian province of Daraa, amid dozens of unclaimed attacks by gunmen. Over the last three months, assassinations, checkpoint attacks, fires, and sporadic clashes have wreaked havoc in the area and signaled a potential return of conflict. 

Since the start of the regime’s military campaign in Idlib last month, a group of Free Syrian Army factions that fought alongside Turkish soldiers has gradually entered the region. This development may balance the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham presence and ultimately help to force the group out of the demilitarized zone, ensuring a continued Turkish-Russian consensus on Idlib.

It’s been nearly three years since the Turkish incursion into northern Syria in August 2016, but one central question remains unanswered: What is Ankara’s plan for the area now under its control? This paper examines the complex relationship between local governance and service provision in the Euphrates Shield (ES) area of north Aleppo and the Turkish state. Using secondary sources and interviews with Syrian and Turkish activists and officials, this paper establishes that, first and foremost, Turkey has no coherent policy with regards to local governance in ES.

In May, the European Council adopted the 2018 iteration of the EU Annual Report on Human Rights and Democracy in the World. Promoting human rights has long been a priority for the EU, but in practice the bloc is selective about the human rights violations its analyzes, especially when it comes to the Middle East.

The territorial defeat of ISIS in March 2019 was a significant victory in the fight against terrorism, but the struggle to defeat violent extremism is far from over. Ambassador Edmund Fitton-Brown and Charles Lister join guest host Gerald Feierstein to discuss the latest developments in policy to combat regional terrorist threats.

The growing power of paramilitary groups and the response of Bashar al-Assad’s foreign backers illustrates how local skirmishes over smuggling routes can have much broader geopolitical implications as Russia gains ground at the expense of both the regime and Iran.

In this week’s Monday Briefing, MEI experts Charles Lister, Paul Salem, and Mirette F. Mabrouk provide analysis on recent and upcoming events including military developments in Syria’s northwest, the confirmation of David Schenker as Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, and the approval of amendments to laws regulating Egypt’s judiciary.

Sometime in June the UN Security Council will vote to approve another six-month renewal of the mandate of the 1000-strong UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) deployed in the Golan Heights. For more than four decades, the UN Security Council has unanimously renewed the mission’s mandate to maintain the ceasefire between Israel and Syria, but this will be the first time it has come up for a vote since President Donald Trump signed a proclamation recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the area of the Golan Heights on March 25th.

As fighting rages across the last opposition-held province of Idlib, the war in Syria has reached its brutal endgame. The Syrian army’s offensive, launched in early May, will not be quick, but rather marks the start of what will likely be a prolonged, violent, and ultimately costly campaign. If the first few weeks of the operation are anything to go by, resistance will be fierce — fiercer than initially expected — and as the world’s attention shifts toward Idlib, the stakes are now higher than ever.