Though it has fallen out of the headlines because of the Iran war, Syria has had a dramatically consequential summer. Hosts Alistair Taylor and Matthew Czekaj are joined by MEI Senior Fellow Charles Lister to take stock of recent developments: the dissolution of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, Israeli strikes and the friction with Turkey they have exposed, the standoff in Sweida, as well as Damascus’s bid to turn Syria into a trade corridor between the Mediterranean and the Gulf. Is the transition consolidating or fragmenting nearly two years after the fall of the Assad regime?
With sanctions repealed, Syrian policymakers must ensure that growing volumes of credit reach beyond the narrow political and commercial networks that have generally dominated Syrian finance. That will require a credit strategy aimed at sectors and regions historically excluded from formal finance. Syria’s specialized state banks offer an imperfect but ready-made mechanism to do so.
In many ways, the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran and the war in Gaza that preceded it seem transformative. After decades of shadow warfare, Iran and Israel have now attacked each other’s homelands directly. And Israel and the United States have joined forces in a genuinely novel way to wage war against Iran.
MEI’s Syria Initiative seeks to provide insightful and grounded research and analysis on all things Syria in order to better inform a wide range of audiences and to help sustain and shape a more meaningful policy-oriented discussion.
The Middle East Institute, The Atlantic Council, and European Institute of Peace collaborate with subject matter experts and policymakers in the US, Europe, and the Middle East to develop a holistic strategy to sustainably forge a pathway to resolving Syria’s crisis.
The first volume of the migration and the Arab World series dealt primarily with the trends in, consequences of, and policy responses to labor migration in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states since the “oil boom” period of the 1970s. This volume focuses on the countries of the Mashreq (i.e., Egypt and the Levant) as source and destination countries for various migrant groups, dating from the late 19th century up to the present day.
This Opinion first appeared in Foreign Policy on May 30, 2012
The massacre in al-Houla, where Syrian military forces and allied militiamen massacred more than 100 civilians in cold blood, leaves no doubt about the intentions of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime: survival at any cost and through any means. Assad does not have a Plan B.
Introduction to The Environment and the Middle East: New Approaches and New Actors , Volume II
The tumultuous political changes taking place across the region dominate the news — deservedly so. Yet, there are other changes taking place throughout the Middle East which, though less prominent, also merit attention. Indeed, the region has no shortage of creative and committed “change agents” who in ways great and small have taken meaningful steps to address the myriad challenges to the sustainability of the region’s physical environment. Volume II in this series offers snapshots of a small selection of the many efforts aimed at cultivating responsible environmental stewardship.
This Opinion first appeared on CNN.com on April 20, 2012
The six-point peace plan for Syria proposed by Kofi Annan is doomed to fail for one simple reason: Neither President Bashar al-Assad nor the government opposition is interested in making it work.
The Russian government, like its counterparts in the West, the Middle East, and elsewhere, was caught off guard by the outburst of Arab uprisings beginning in January 2011 that swept away long-ruling authoritarian regimes in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and (it appears) Yemen, and have threatened to topple those in Bahrain and Syria. The response of the Russian government to these events has, like that of Western governments, often been confused and inconsistent. Just as Western governments have done, Moscow has sought to protect its interests in the region.
MEI’s Syria Initiative seeks to provide insightful and grounded research and analysis on all things Syria in order to better inform a wide range of audiences and to help sustain and shape a more meaningful policy-oriented discussion. Drawing on the expertise of over a dozen renowned scholars, the Syria Program covers all aspects of Syria and its ongoing crises – from political, economic, legal, social, ethnic and religious dynamics, to conflict, insurgency and terrorism and the country’s history and possible futures.
