Tag: Syria
A most futile foreign policy
This election is, unfortunately, not about policy. It’s a popularity contest. A polarity contest. It’s about proving how bad the other candidate is. Both Trump and Clinton have terrible favorability ratings. Clinton is seen unfavorably...
Always returning
I’m back. A week ago, I stepped onto a plane from Rafic Hariri International Airport in Beirut and traveled back to the United States after a year away. There are a thousand stories to tell,...
Syria in summary – February 2016
The third attempt at a peace conference in Geneva pretty much started off already on a downhill slide. The opposition, championed by the Saudi-founded High Negotiations Committee, was immediately irritated by an unprecedented uptick in...
Against Humanity
You hear the term “crimes against humanity” and imagine a whole movie reel of the most horrible atrocities ever committed by human hands. You draw up images of naked, starving, rail-thin children screaming in concentration...
How to make 2016 a better year for Syria
The city of Qamishli in northeastern Syria closed out 2015 with explosions. They weren’t fireworks. They were the blasts of a car bomb outside a popular café. Thirteen people were killed, mostly young men and...
Syria in summary – January 2016
An estimated one million refugees crossed the Mediterranean to Europe in 2015, but the brief open-door sentiment captained by a German government newly-alert to the severity of the refugee crisis at its doorstep is already beginning...
Stay in the Middle East loop. Read these.
1. ‘I wish I could die’: Meeting the man who helped trigger the Arab Spring – Clemens Höges, Spiegel Online International, Jan. 21 “The acts of desperation quickly transformed into a political hurricane. It swept along Africa’s...
There Are Cedars Where I’m Going
On the other side of the sea, clasped tight between ancient mountains and a battered blue coast, perches a small country with a brilliant and blemished past and, with a little help and a little...
They couldn’t save the photo album
There’s a large, old apartment building one town over. It’s the oldest place around. Old brick, old heating, old beautiful architecture. Lots of families live there, and it’s pretty diverse. Still, folks have gotten along...
Foreign policy in 4 years of State of the Union addresses
Syria – “Assad is on the way out… well, unless he’s not” 2012 (1 mention): “And in Syria, I have no doubt that the Assad regime will soon discover that the forces of change cannot...