Bashar al-Assad
- Joe Penney
- • October 28, 2019
SOCHI, Russia — As the Turkish presidential plane carried President Recep Tayyip Erdogan across the Black Sea from Sochi, Russia, back to Ankara last week, dozens of African heads of state arrived in this resort city for the inaugural…
- Categories: Africa, Geopolitics, Security Council, US Foreign Relations
- Irwin Arieff
- • June 16, 2018
As one of the world’s oldest areas of human settlement, Syria has seen it all: glory and irrelevance, conflict and calm, dynamism and stagnation, tyranny and tolerance. While it has gone through long periods of international obscurity — pretty…
- Categories: BOOKS
- Andrew McIndoe
- • May 3, 2018
After seven years of horrific fighting, it appears that the Syrian civil war is inching toward a conclusion. In the wake of recent alleged chemical attacks unleashed in Eastern Ghouta, Bashar al-Assad’s regime is squeezing remaining rebel forces, largely…
- Categories: Peace and Security, UN Peacekeeping, WORLDVIEWS
- Irwin Arieff
- • December 21, 2016
The butterfly effect teaches us that seemingly insignificant actions can have enormous future consequences. A tiny pair of fluttering wings can disturb the air in a way that helps trigger a hurricane halfway around the world. Witness Syria, where…
- Categories: Middle East, Peace and Security, Security Council, US Foreign Relations, WORLDVIEWS
- Barbara Crossette
- • September 21, 2016
With a cease-fire in Syria collapsing around him and bombs destroying precious relief supplies intended for the hungry, traumatized survivors of relentless government attacks on the once grand city of Aleppo, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon used his last…
- Categories: General Assembly, SDGs, Secretary-General, Security Council
- Ann Phillips
- • May 4, 2016
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Terrorism and violent extremism are the most dramatic threats in the 21st century to state monopoly on the use of force, a cornerstone of the international system. In recent years, the failure of early counterterrorism efforts to…
- Categories: WORLDVIEWS
- Barbara Crossette
- • March 20, 2016
Only close cooperation between the United States and Russia can end the “terrible tragedy” in Syria, says Lakhdar Brahimi, the highly respected international mediator in the Middle East for more than two decades. Brahimi, who led United Nations missions…
- Categories: Middle East
- Irwin Arieff
- • February 20, 2016
Sun Tzu’s classic work on the art of war advises would-be warriors to “know your enemy.” What were Western powers and the United Nations thinking when they first pondered ways to stop Syrian President Bashar al-Assad from beating, torturing,…
- Categories: BOOKS
- Dulcie Leimbach
- • December 26, 2015
When the United Nations Security Council recently approved timelines to begin peace talks and institute a national cease-fire in Syria, the language in the resolution gave no hint of the magnitude of such undertakings, nor did the congratulatory speeches…
- Categories: Gender Violence, Middle East, Peace and Security, Security Council, Women
- Barbara Crossette
- • October 4, 2015
With an astounding 12 million people in Syria displaced from their homes in a population that numbered about 23 million before its civil war began in full fledge in 2012, the questions that inevitably arise are: Why isn’t the…
- Categories: Middle East, Migration, Refugees
- Dulcie Leimbach
- • September 29, 2015
Seizing a chance to respond more coherently to the deadly situation in Syria, the European Union and Jordan are proposing a “resilience plan” to alleviate the humanitarian emergency while pushing for a political course to stop the Syrian government…
- Categories: Human Trafficking, Libya, Middle East, Refugees
- John Torpey
- • December 3, 2014
Is the conflict in the contemporary Muslim world so unusual, given that Christians were doing similar things 400 to 500 years ago? Is it really a phenomenon that involves “Muslims,” or is it more a matter of conflicts peculiar…
- Categories: WORLDVIEWS
- Kate Campbell and W.E. DaCruz
- • June 13, 2014
The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has removed more than 80 percent of the world’s declared stockpile of chemical weapons through its oversight of the Chemical Weapons Convention, but the Syrian case has posed a serious challenge…
- Categories: WORLDVIEWS
- Dulcie L Leimbach
- • May 13, 2014
Lakhdar Brahimi, the United Nations-Arab League special envoy on the Syrian crisis, has resigned as of May 31, ending many months of speculation on his leaving, particularly after the peace talks held this winter in Geneva between the Syrian…
- Categories: GOINGS-ON
- Dulcie Leimbach
- • February 22, 2014
The United Nations Security Council approved a breakthrough resolution to demand humanitarian-aid access in Syria, after debating the language of the text for at least a week, as Russia lobbied hard for changes to soften wording or delete passages…
- Categories: Humanitarian Aid, Middle East, Security Council
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