Jun 5, 2012

The Houla massacre

The situation in Syria continues to worsen. While accurate information is difficult to acquire, all indications are that the country hovers on the brink of a civil war. The most recent atrocity is a massacre in the town of Houla that left at least ...

Mar 21, 2012

Nearing the end of tyranny?

by Hugh Cortazzi

President Vladimir Putin in Russia, President Bashar Assad in Syria and President Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe are detested by many of their fellow countrymen who would like to see them overthrown and tried for human rights abuses. They depend on a close coterie of ...

Mar 20, 2012

Mistaken presumptions about Assad's Syria

by Roger Owen

Syria’s uprising against President Bashar Assad, which began peacefully in Damascus a year ago, has become increasingly brutal and splintered. As the death toll nears 9,000, calls for international intervention have increased — but what worked in places like Libya won’t necessarily succeed in ...

Mar 19, 2012

Syrian crisis shadowed by outcome in Libya

by John J. Metzler

As the conflict in Syria churns out a ghastly human carnage, diplomatic efforts to halt the violence are shadowed by last year’s intervention in the Libyan conflict, which resulted in a six-month-long military operation to topple a tyrant. So, when the U.N. Security Council ...

Jan 17, 2012

The Syrian charade

There have been 300 days of protest against the government of Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad. They have made no dent in the government’s resolve. Even the presence of an Arab League observer group has had no impact on Damascus’s readiness to bring all its ...