THERE WILL BE YEARS OF SOUL-SEARCHING to do on the many aspects of our failure in Syria, but humanitarian aid is one area that warrants bold and immediate action. The issue is not so much our inability to address the sheer magnitude of suffering and disruption, which may well be beyond anyone’s capacity to alleviate…
Category: Syria
The Syrian trauma
EVERY NOW AND THEN, the conflict in Syria produces an iconic image of horror and suffering, which many brandish as an undisputable truth that will finally shake the world into “doing something”. Others break down at the sight of such images, or instinctively avert their senses. Mass killings and disappearances, industrial-scale torture and sexual abuse,…
Erosion and resilience of the Iraqi-Syrian border
THE ONGOING WARS in Syria and Iraq have triggered a spate of commentary and counter-commentary debating “the end of Sykes-Picot,” shorthand for the collapse of the century-old state system imposed on the Middle East by European powers after World War I. (1) One class of commentators has warned of the erasure of the post-Ottoman order—in…
The Syrian heartbreak
THERE WAS A DISTINCTIVE SENSE of national pride in Syria. It flowed from the confidence of a civilization dating back to the times of the earliest alphabets and visible in the country’s wealth of archaeological sites, including some of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. It came from the depth of local culture….
Beyond the fall of the Syrian regime
SYRIANS ARE APPROACHING the one-year anniversary of what has become the most tragic, far-reaching and uncertain episode of the Arab uprisings. Since protesters first took to the streets in towns and villages across the country in March 2011, they have paid an exorbitant price in a domestic crisis that has become intertwined with a strategic…
Collectively failing Syrian society
FOR MONTHS, neither the Syrian regime, the international community, nor the opposition in exile have offered much hope in a dangerously deteriorating crisis. Increasingly, they seem to be unintentionally conniving in bringing about a civil war although it will serve no one’s interests, destabilize Syria for years, and suck in the rest of the region….
Crunch-time for the Syrian regime
SEEN FROM DAMASCUS, the crisis that is gripping Syria is fast approaching crunch-time. The regime appears to have stopped pretending it can offer a way out. More than ever, it portrays the confrontation as a war waged against a multifaceted foreign enemy which it blames for all casualties. This narrative, which informs the security services’…
Syria’s race against the clock
THE SYRIA WE KNEW IS NO LONGER. Together with the rest of the region, it has entered an era of uncertainty and incessant flux. For now it has settled into a slow-motion revolution, as protests both fail to reach a critical mass and prod authorities to successfully respond to far-reaching demands. Two conflicting trends currently…
Syria following the script
PRESIDENT BASHAR ASSAD’s strongest asset, in the face of growing frustration in the street, was the lapse of time he was offered to study developments elsewhere in the region. Indeed, surprise was a key factor in the speed with which his Tunisian and Egyptian counterparts were overtaken by events. With the president’s speech today, the…
Peter Harling archive 