140 Items

 In this April 4, 2018 file photo, a U.S-backed Syrian Manbij Military Council soldier passes a U.S. position near the tense front line with Turkish-backed fighters, in Manbij, north Syria.

AP Photo/Hussein Malla

Analysis & Opinions - The Washington Post

The International Community Must Stop Turkey’s Ethnic Cleansing Plans in Northern Syria

| Oct. 11, 2019

For years, Turkey’s government allowed Islamic State fighters to cross its territory into Syria. But, before Monday, there were no Islamic State fighter elements along Turkey’s border with Syria because Kurds, Arabs and Christians expelled them with help from the U.S. military. Today, these U.S. allies are running for their lives.

AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari

AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari

News

Event Podcast: "Resilience Drivers in the Healthcare System in Times of Conflict: The Case of Lebanon"

Apr. 29, 2019

Audio recording of an April 29, seminar with Dr. Randa S. Hamadeh, Director, Primary Healthcare and Social Health department, Ministry of Public Health, Lebanon.

Co-sponsored by the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

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Analysis & Opinions

KNX InDepth

| Dec. 19, 2018
President Trump declared on Twitter that ISIS had been totally defeated, and then got to work executing a surprising and rapid withdrawal of American military and state department personnel from Syria. The problem is, U.S. intelligence agencies seem to disagree with the President's victory declaration.

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Analysis & Opinions - Vanity Fair

“He Doesn’t See the Value for the U.S.”: Trump’s Syria Ultimatum Gives Washington Whiplash

| Dec. 19, 2018

In a single cryptic tweet Wednesday, Donald Trump declared that the U.S. mission in Syria had been accomplished. “We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there during the Trump Presidency,” the president wrote. Shortly afterward, White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders confirmed that troops would begin returning home “as we transition to the next phase of this campaign.” It was not immediately clear what Trump or Sanders meant, or what would happen to the reported 2,000 troops currently working alongside Kurdish fighters against Islamic militants in northeastern Syria.

Family Fisher Fellow and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Tawakkol Karman

APB

Analysis & Opinions - The Washington Post

Enough is Enough. End the War in Yemen.

| Nov. 21, 2018

Today, the Yemeni people are suffering from the actions of outsiders. Regional powers have turned the country into an arena for proxy conflicts that have little to do with the actual interests of the Yemeni nation. Large parts of the country have been devastated, including much of its vital infrastructure. Millions are threatened by starvation and disease. The fighting has left tens of thousands of others dead or wounded.

(MENARA)

(MENARA)

Paper

The Implications of the Syrian War For New Regional Orders

| Sep. 12, 2018

This paper argues that the impact of the eight-year war in Syria will reverberate across the region for years to come, and explores, in particular, four noteworthy legacies. First, it examines the series of interventions in Syria by regional and foreign powers (including Russia, Turkey, Iran, the United States, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates) that reconfigured the role of such powers across the region. Second, it reveals the emergence of two opposing alliances in the region, each comprising Arab states, regional Arab and non-Arab powers, global powers and local nonstate actors. These or similar alliances may well reappear in other Middle Eastern conflicts. Third, it analyses the striking number and variety of foreign forces that either directly fought in Syria or indirectly supported warring factions. Since 2012, these forces have included at least twenty states and major non-state players, alongside hundreds of smaller tribal, Islamist and secular rebel and pro-Assad groups. Finally, the paper suggests that the international community’s weak response to the untold war crimes on both sides, and its apparent de facto acceptance of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s incumbency, portend continuing regional authoritarian and violent political systems for the foreseeable future.

(ESCWA, 2018)

(ESCWA, 2018)

Report - United Nations

Social Development Report 2: Inequality, Autonomy and Change in the Arab Region

| May, 2018

This report, the second Social Development Report from ESCWA, documents an increase in inequality of access to good quality education and to good jobs in several countries of the region, which may further entrench income inequalities.