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The Price Hezbollah Pays for Supporting the Syrian Regime

Being drawn into the Syrian civil war forced Hezbollah to pay both a political price and a price to its image in the Arab-Muslim world… Continue reading

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Hezbollah Support for the Syrian Regime

Hezbollah supports the Syrian regime as the civil war drags on… Continue reading

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Hezbollah Involvement in the Syrian Civil War

For Iran and Hezbollah, the preservation of Bashar Assad’s regime is of supreme strategic importance… Continue reading

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Can Assad’s Syria Survive Revolution?

How the Assad regime has managed to survive the revolution, for the time being and in contrast to other recent upheavals in the Middle East… Continue reading

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The Arab-Kurdish Battle in Syria: Implications for Turkey’s Standing

The battle over the Syrian town Ras al-Ain on the border to Turkey damaged Turkish relations with the Kurds in Syria, and with parts of Syrian opposition… Continue reading

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The Obama Visit: A Parable

The visit of Baron Viktor Frankenstein could be considered a big success… Continue reading

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Obama Visit to Israel: A Love Fest with Lots of Policy Complications

The Obama visit to Israel has become an unlimited love fest with expressions of mutual admiration and total agreement… Continue reading

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What the West is Doing Wrong While Facing Islamist Intimidation

Islamists will intimidate anyone who let them intimidate… Continue reading

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Iran Has to Prefer Syria to the Khuzestan Region

Should Iran give more importance to Syria than to the Khuzestan region… Continue reading

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A Look Back at Forty Years of Middle East Analysis

My main goal of forty years of Middle East analysis has been trying to explain the Middle East as it actually exists, how its politics work, and how its history can be understood… Continue reading

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Learning the Wrong Lessons from Ike

The real lessons of 1956… Continue reading

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Why Israel Attacked A Syrian Base

Israel forces carried out a strike overnight on a convoy coming from Syria in the Lebanon-Syria border area… Continue reading

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The Folly of Arming Syria’s Rebels

What can the United States can do to counteract the glaring Islamization of rebel ranks… Continue reading

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Fighting Blind: The AKP’s Increasingly Hardline Kurdish Policy

Even if the Turkish military wins every battle against the PKK, an even more dangerous war is being lost… Continue reading

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Who Will Rule Syria? A Detailed Assessment

The civil war in Syria is moving into the end-game… Continue reading

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The Interview: “Explaining the Latest Middle East Developments” (No Satire)

Revised and updated version of an interview Barry Rubin gave recently… Continue reading

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Syria’s Assyrians, caught in the middle

Of all the Christian communities in Syria, the Assyrians, that is, those Christians who identify as such by virtue of belonging to the Assyrian Church of the East, arguably have the most complex relationship with the Assad regime… Continue reading

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For Turkey as a Model in the Middle East, America Remains Crucial

The Turkish presumption to be a “model” for the Middle East will be undermined if the United States were to withdraw from the affairs of the region… Continue reading

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Syria: Spillover into Iraq?

Is the resurgent of Al-Qaida in Iraq a result from the growing civil war in Syria… Continue reading

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Erdogan’s Way – Confrontation at Home and Abroad – May be Backfiring

Turkey’s governing Justice and Development Party has been well served by the confrontational style of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan… Continue reading

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Russia-Turkey Strains Deepen over Syria

The Syrian crisis is a good test of the strength of the Russia-Turkish detente… Continue reading

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The Sunni-Shia Conflict Will Be the Major Feature of Middle East Politics for Decades

We are not just talking here about theological differences but a battle between individual leaders, organizations, and states for power and primacy… Continue reading

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Turkey’s Changing Syria Policy: Giving Diplomacy a Chance?

Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, meeting in Baku, Azerbaijan, proposed that the crisis in Syria be addressed through diplomatic methods and called for the establishment of an international mechanism for dialogue… Continue reading

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What Does Turkey Hope to Achieve with Its War Threats Against Syria?

The Turkish government appears to hope to deter the continued Syrian – and Iranian – deployment of the Kurdish card against Turkey… Continue reading

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Getting Priorities Wrong in Egypt and Syria: Three Media Case Studies

Focus is everything — knowing what the central problem is, and dealing with it… Continue reading