The Syrian Crisis: Pitting Russia Against The U.S.

The latest UN resolution sponsored by Western powers (the United States, England and France) designed to increase the pressure on Assad and force him to step down was once again rejected by Russia and China, making it abundantly clear that all diplomatic efforts have come to a dead end. If Russia, the main proponent of…

July 30, 2012 Read more

No Reconciliation With The Butcher Of Damascus

I cannot begin this article without first expressing my profound outrage about the behavior of the Western powers, Turkey, the Arab League, and Kofi Annan, all of whom are still debating the likelihood of finding a political solution to end the merciless butchering of the Syrian people by the Assad regime. Do they really think…

July 19, 2012 Read more

Syria: The International Travesty

After fifteen months of relentless slaughter, the developments in Syria, with shockingly inordinate amounts of slain women and children, have demonstrated the international community’s ineptitude and contemptible moral bankruptcy in the face of horrific carnage. The failure to stop the crisis stems from the international community’s unwillingness to take stern measures to end the killing while it continues to take cover under the Annan plan and mouths countless verbal condemnations of the Assad regime, knowing full well that they will not succeed. Those that can change the course of events in Syria, including the US, EU, Turkey and the Arab League, have shamefully demonstrated the most startling shortsightedness coupled with wishful thinking in the face of insurmountable odds.

With the suspension of the observer mission in Syria, Mr. Annan has conjured yet another “ingenious” reformation of his beleaguered plan by calling for the creation of a “Syria Contact Group” that perplexingly includes Iran and Russia, who have and continue to provide President Assad with the means by which he slaughters his own people. While Mr. Annan is genuinely trying to end the killings by diplomatic means, his desire to preserve his reputation as an international mediator continues to stand in the way. Annan’s new plan (like the previous ones) will soon prove futile. Meanwhile, thousands of more innocent Syrians will die due to the West’s inability to garner the moral courage to decisively act.

June 25, 2012 Read more

Syrian Kurds: Time To Assert Their Rights

Regardless of what may come out of Kofi Annan’s peace plan to end the internal conflict in Syria, and whatever may emerge from the Arab League meeting this week in Baghdad, the prospect of Assad’s fall offers the Kurdish minority in Syria a historic opportunity to gain equal political and civil rights. Given the totalitarian nature of Baathist rule under Assad, the regime’s fall in Syria will take the entire system of government down with it, much like Saddam’s Iraq in 2003. But unlike Iraq’s Kurds who have enjoyed virtual autonomy since 1991 when the United States enforced a no-fly zone over northern Iraq, Syria’s Kurds are less organized and more divided. Syrian Kurds need to close ranks, fully join the Syrian people in pursuit of freedom, and not allow this historic window of opportunity to slip away.

March 27, 2012 Read more

Ineptitude Coupled With Moral Bankruptcy

A little more than a week ago, a heart-wrenching photo by Rodrigo Abd appeared in the front pages of the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. The horror on the face of this young Syrian boy named Ahmed encapsulates the enormity of pain and the unspeakable agony this innocent child has endured during the funeral of his father who was killed the day before by a Syrian Army sniper. But this is only one face of a single boy. How many thousands of Syrian children have met similar fates-children whose faces we have not seen not only because of the Syrian authorities’ restrictions on media coverage but because of the ineptitude and moral bankruptcy of the international community to prevent such a tragedy from happening time and time again?

March 20, 2012 Read more

Iran: Obama’s Indecisiveness Makes Israeli Strike Likely

The failure of President Obama to impose crippling sanctions a few months after assuming office in 2009 makes the prospect of an Israeli strike on Iran nuclear facilities in the coming few months increasingly more likely. To prevent Israel from taking unilateral action against Iran, the Obama administration must insist that any resumption of negotiations is conditioned upon the immediate suspension of all uranium enrichment activities and acceptance of complete oversight from the International Atomic and Energy Agency (IAEA). Otherwise, the U.S. will have to deal with the serious repercussions of potentially a major conflagration in the Middle East with its unpredictably dire consequences.

February 28, 2012 Read more

End The Slaughter In Syria While Isolating Iran

Seldom has the dividing line between the forces of moderation and the forces of extremism been so clear in the Middle East. The extremist anti-West, Iran-led Shiite Crescent, consisting of Iraq (largely operating at Iran’s behest), Syria, and Lebanon, heavily subsidized by Tehran with political capital and financial resources for the past three decades, is now under serious threat of collapse thanks to the crack in its most critical link: Syria’s Assad regime. On the other hand, the human tragedy in Syria has created a rare common interest between the old and the new Arab regimes, Turkey, the US, and the EU for the potential emergence of a representative government in Damascus.

February 21, 2012 Read more

Russia’s Self-Marginalization

Russia’s foreign policy doctrine appears to be based on rejecting every policy initiative that the United States and the European Union take and only then, beginning to negotiate from ground zero. This has been demonstrated in Russia’s Middle East approach where Moscow has chosen extremely shortsighted policy options, allowing the massacre to continue in Syria while remaining mute regarding Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons. As a global power, Russia enjoys a unique position of tremendous influence on both Syria and Iran and has the ability to play an extraordinarily positive role in defusing the internal conflict in Syria and the Iranian-Western conflict in connection with Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.  Having failed to do so may risk turning these conflicts into major regional, if not global, crises while marginalizing Russia itself both regionally and internationally.

February 13, 2012 Read more

How Syria’s Ruling Apparatus Became Its Albatross

It was strongly suggested by close top officials in the Syrian government that I spoke with more than a decade ago that when Syria’s President, Bashar Assad, first assumed power he was determined to introduce some significant political reforms. Why then has he failed to implement at least some of what he had intended to do and failed to meet the public’s expectations for change following his father’s 30 year reign? The reason is that Mr. Assad inherited from his father more than merely the office of the Presidency. He inherited a system of governing: an entrenched ruling apparatus consisting of the Baath party leadership, the high military brass, a massive Intelligence (Mukhabarat) community, internal security and top business elites; all dominated by Bashar’s own Alawite minority group which had heavily-vested interests in maintaining the system at all costs. Mr. Assad was able to assert his rule based only on the tacit condition that he would preserve the status-quo, which in the end turned out to be his albatross.

January 30, 2012 Read more
Page 5 of 13First...4567...Last