Bashar’s real problems start now

By Claude Salhani

Frederic C. Hof, a resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East, recently wrote a column in which he asks whether Syria has been ‘’sold” to Iran. By that he means whether a deal was struck between Washington and Tehran where the Syrians are the losers. Hof then goes on to answer his own question, explaining why this is unlikely, giving a sundry list of reasons why.

Syrian civil war inches towards Turkey

By Claude Salhani

When the civil war began in earnest in Syria and outside forces started to interfere supporting one side or the other, Bashar Assad, at that point still a novice in the finer points of conducting war against one’s own people, issued a warning to the international community. Basi­cally what he said was along the lines of hell would spread to the rest of the region if the civil war was allowed to continue.