Last week, the spokesman for the Saudi military, General Ahmed Asseri, announced that Saudi Arabia is “is ready to participate in any ground operations that the coalition (against Islamic State) may agree to carry out in Syria” and that its decision to move into the war-torn country is “irreversible." However, given that the Saudis and their allies in the newly formed Islamic Coalition are conducting massive joint operational military exercises—codenamed Northern Thunder—in preparation for very possible military interventions in the near future, it’s clear that the Kingdom-led multinational coalition will not stop at ISIS....

In this Washington Post op-ed, two former U.S. ambassadors, Nicholas Burns and James Jeffrey, make the diplomatic case for America to create a safe zone in Syria. They advocate a much stronger American role to: 1) push for humanitarian corridors into Syria to help civilians under siege from the Assad government and rebel groups and some at risk of starvation; and 2) that the Administration reconsider its refusal to form a regional coalition to engineer a safe zone in northern Syria along the Turkish border where civilians can flee to safety enforced by a No Flight Zone in the same area and; 3) that we should commit American soldiers to help organize and police the zones in order to recruit the majority of the zone's soldiers from our allies and partners.

A modest diplomatic breakthrough seems near in Lebanon, as the allies of Saudi Arabia and Iran appear to have tentatively agreed on a new president after an 18-month deadlock.

The recent attacks in Paris have spurred a flood of demands to escalate the fight against ISIS. Now that the initial shock is over, it is time to explore in greater detail what such efforts should look like if their results are not to prove worse than the threat that ISIS currently poses. The following is an attempt to sketch a number of questions that should be pondered before a decision to further escalate the war is taken.

Former UK Ambassador to Lebanon, Tom Fletcher, and BBC war correspondent, Paul Wood, participated in a conversation on Syria moderated by Future of Diplomacy Project Executive Director, Cathryn Clüver, titled “Tolerating the Intolerable: Syria Four Years On” on September 30. Both speakers gave a highly variegated and in-depth response of the major and corollary issues at play in the Syrian conflict and beyond, including the difficulty of finding moderate forces on the ground, the dangers of warzone journalism, the migrant crisis, and Russia's strategic interests.

“Syrian peace talks” is one of those phrases where the soothing words don’t fit the nightmare reality. But the indefatigable Secretary of State John F. Kerry is making another try this weekend in Vienna, and there’s more to this effort than just his good intentions.

President Obama says he doesn’t want to turn the Syria conflict into a proxy war. Unfortunately, that’s already happening, as combatants join the battle against the Islamic State with radically differing agendas that could collide.

An audio recording from Stephen M. Walt, Robert and Renée Belfer Professor of International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School.

On April 29, 2015 at MEI, Prof. Stephen Walt assessed U.S. policy and interests in the Middle East, arguing that scaled back involvement might yield better results for the U.S. and the region.

An audio recording from Bassam Haddad, Associate Professor, School of Policy, Government, and International Affairs, and Director, Middle East and Islamic Studies Program, George Mason University.

On April 2, 2015 at MEI, Professor Bassam Haddad presented a lecture in MEI Visiting Scholar Michael C. Hudson's Spring 2015 Study Group "Rethinking the Arab State" in which he assessed the fluctuating political reality in Syria and how various groups, including Bashar Al-Assad's regime, as well as ISIS and the unarmed civilian opposition organize and govern areas and people under their control.

An audio recording from Nabil Fahmy, former Foreign Minister of Egypt and Dean, School of Global Affairs and Public Policy (GAPP), Professor of Practice in International Diplomacy, American University Cairo.

On April 15, 2015 at MEI, Minister Nabil Fahmy presented his assessent of the challenges facing the Middle East today and laid out his vision for the region to confront those challenges and seize opportunities, with special focus on Egypt's role in the Arab world and Middle East at large, in a public address moderated by Kennedy School professor Nicholas Burns.