Publications

In all transitional periods, it is important to move quickly from revolutionary legitimacy to representative legitimacy, which Syria’s new authorities did by a…

Assad's regime imprisoned more than 150,000 people, including some 5,000 children. Multiple reports have emerged of horrific torture, neglect, and murder insid…

Turkey has played a pivotal role in Syria’s conflict, significantly shaping the trajectory of opposition groups, particularly Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). With…

The fall of the Assad regime has highlighted a crucial but often overlooked issue: the fate of Syria’s state archives. Former officials have left behind millio…

On December 8, the Syrian armed resistance group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) brought the Assad regime to an abrupt end after more than 54 years of brutal rule.…

The monumental events that took place in the Middle East in 2024 augur radical changes in the region’s geopolitical environment. Israel’s ongoing genocidal war…

With a presidential transition imminent, US policy on Syria, not to mention the broader Middle East, is in limbo.

The fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria has provided Israel with yet more opportunities to brazenly tear apart the fabric of international legal norms, f…

Nour Taha discusses the need for reviving and strengthening state institutions in Syria after the collapse of the Assad regime, stating that they are necessary…

The rapid collapse of the Assad regime by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) fighters has put Syrian Kurds of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and their autonomous …

Many western media outlets have speculated about the quick collapse of the Syrian regime and its military and security services in their battle against a coali…

For Iran, the fall of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad and what was left of his regime—together with Moscow’s decision to throw its leading Middle East ally to the wind…

December 8, 2024, marked a historic turning point in Syria and the Middle East region—a day when the Syrian people achieved what had seemed unattainable: the t…

The fall of Damascus marked the end of the regime of Bashar al-Assad, who inherited the presidency from his father Hafez al-Assad in 2000.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan expressed clear satisfaction with the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States, quickly congratulating…

On May 19, 2023, Bashar al-Assad made headlines by attending the Arab League summit in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia for the first time since the start of the Syria Civ…

In recent weeks, there have been meetings in Washington and in Baghdad about the presence in Iraq and Syria of US troops, whose official mandate is to aid loca…

As the war between Israel and Hamas rages, the Middle East is bracing for a wider, multi-front regional conflict that will have serious repercussions for the g…

Syrian Kurds associated with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) are increasingly seeing their autonomous entity in northeastern Syria threatened by internal an…

The 32nd Arab League Summit was little more than the final crowning of Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince as the leader of the current Arab political order.

Against the backdrop of Syria’s impending return to the Arab fold, French judges this month ordered three high-ranking Syrian intelligence officers to stand tr…

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad paid an important visit to Moscow in mid-March 2023. One of the main agenda items was the Turkish-Syrian reconciliation that R…

The recent China-brokered agreement between Saudi Arabia and the Islamic Republic of Iran is expected to have a de-escalating effect on many issues in the Midd…

On February 6, 2023, the earth shifted at the fault line that runs along the Turkey-Syria border, resulting in a 7.8 magnitude earthquake, which was followed j…

The massive earthquake that struck southern Turkey and northwestern Syria has given the Syrian Kurds a reprieve from a possible Turkish military invasion of ar…

The devastating February 6 earthquakes in Turkey, which caused nearly 45,000 deaths in Turkey and Syria and rendered hundreds of thousands of people homeless, …

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s interest in a rapprochement with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is the latest chapter in his delicate domestic and r…

The Biden administration’s Syria policy, as well as its policy for the Middle East in general, stems from priorities and practices set in place during the eigh…

By 2015, over four million Syrians had fled the country’s civil war and arrived in neighboring countries, in Europe, and beyond. Today, the number of displaced…

In the early hours of July 1, 2022, Turkish sources reported on a story of undocumented immigrants fleeing the Osmaniye Refugee Camp in southern Turkey. That s…

The ongoing military conflict between Israel and Iran (along with Iran-backed Shia forces like Hezbollah) in Syria show no signs of easing despite the Russia-U…

With the approaching date of the next Arab Summit to be hosted by Algeria in March 2022, some member countries of the League of Arab States have become more vo…

More than six years after Russia began its military intervention in the Syrian civil war, President Vladimir Putin has chalked up some important victories amid…

In October 2019, Secretary General of the United Nations António Guterres enthusiastically welcomed the creation of Syria’s Constitutional Committee that would…

A decade after the start of the Syrian revolution against authoritarian rule and the suspension of Syria’s membership in the League of Arab States, the country…

The US-Russian agreement of July 2017 that led to a fragile stability in southwestern Syria has recently unraveled, testing President Joe Biden’s approach in S…

On July 17, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad took his oath of office in front of parliament after winning the presidential election with 95 percent of the popu…

On May 26, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad won a fourth seven-year term in a practically uncontested election. No one was surprised by the original announceme…

With Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on his way to a fourth term in the Syrian presidential election held this week, Moscow is expected to resume its diplomat…

The middle of March marks the tenth anniversary of the civil war in Syria. It began in the south of the country when regime forces resorted to violence to quel…

The Syrian Kurds, who constitute about 10 percent of Syria’s population, are at a crossroads, trying to preserve their shrunken statelet in the northeastern pa…

The exceptional nature of the 2020 American presidential election, held in the shadow of the coronavirus pandemic that has so far killed over a quarter million…

On August 24, the United Nations-sponsored Syrian Constitutional Committee meetings reconvened in Geneva. UN Envoy Geir Peterson, the chair of the meeting, dec…

Radwan Ziadeh contends that the many rounds of negotiations to resolve the Syrian crisis have failed because of the imbalance of power between the Syrian regim…

Yara M. Asi reports that almost ten years of homelessness, poverty, and trauma have deprived millions of Syria’s children and youth—displaced inside the countr…

Joe Macaron argues that in Syria, implementing the Caesar Act sanctions and opening the east-west M4 Highway reflect intensified US-Russian competition while t…

Radwan Ziadeh discounts the long-term political repercussions of the Assad-Makhlouf dispute and writes that if the regime gets in serious trouble, the cousins …

Charles W. Dunne argues that the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq faces numerous setbacks, including the coronavirus, and that the upcoming US-Iraq Stra…

Syria's delayed admission of COVID-19 cases was dictated by the regime's political calculations and its hope to use the cover of the pandemic to avoid sanction…

Daniel Brumberg studies the intricacies of Turkey's involvement in Syria and accommodation with Russia as it simultaneously hopes to enlist the assistance of t…

Will Arab countries be able to renew their influence in Syria given the ever-present inter-Arab rivalry and unfavorable geopolitical factors?

Ankara’s options in Idlib are extremely limited as it must enforce moderation on the part of the extremists as well as address the refugee crisis.

The failure of previous arrangements regarding Syria suggests that the latest ceasefire agreement between Turkey and Russia may only be temporary. Read this an…

Marcus Montgomery discusses how the Trump Administration is pressing forward with its campaign against Iran as many in Congress are trying to constrain the pre…

Charles W. Dunne argues that despite Russia’s success in Syria and stealthy gains in the Middle East since 2015, the limits on its capabilities have become inc…

The dissolution of confessional politics in Lebanon and the political coalescence of the street opposition to negotiate for social change are key to addressing…

The Syrian regime’s killing of scores of Turkish soldiers in Idlib province will aggravate Turkish-Russian relations and take the crisis in Syria in a complete…

Syria’s most difficult battle now is how to support its national currency and fix its collapsing economy with an impoverished central bank and the absence of r…

Syria’s deteriorating economic conditions and the failure of UN-sponsored discussions about a constitutional document indicate that the Syrian people will cont…