Geography Archives: Syria

A number of news reports by AFP, the Guardian, and other news agencies and outlets are suggesting that Syrian security forces were responsible for shooting nine Syrian soldiers, who were killed in Banyas on Sunday.  Some versions insist that they were shot for refusing orders to shoot at demonstrators. Considerable evidence suggests that this is […]

  Tuesday, April 12, 2011 Yassin Al-Hajj Saleh in the New York Times Of course, Saleh suffered from the brutality of the Syrian regime and I share many of his criticisms of the Syrian regime although I don’t share his decision to write about Syria in racist anti-Syrian (people) right-wing publications, like An-Nahar and Al-Hayat […]

  “Syria hosts the largest number of Iraqi refugees who have fled their home since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.  Estimates as to how many refugees are huddled in Syria vary, but most organizations estimate that roughly 1.2-1.5 million Iraqis have staked a temporary claim on neighboring soil.  ‘Temporary,’ however, is a relative time-frame for the […]

  There are some sectarian slogans being chanted by SOME (not all) protesters in Syria (they refer to the need for “Sunnis who fear God”).  It is an opportunity to make this point: if one supports protests and revolutions against all Arab regimes (and Iran), it does not follow that one should endorse all strands […]

  Flynt Leverett, a professor of international affairs at Penn State and a senior fellow at the New America Foundation, is the author of Inheriting Syria: Bashar’s Trial by Fire.  Andrew Tabler, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, is the author of the forthcoming book In the Lion’s Den: An Eyewitness […]

The full extent of the ramifications of the extraordinary developments in Egypt since the beginning of this year — for Egypt itself, for the Middle East, and for the world — will not be clear for some time.  At this juncture, though, it seems virtually certain that post-Mubarak Egypt will have a much more balanced […]

Paul Jay: The title of your upcoming book, Syria’s Democratic Experiment, first of all, what is the experiment?  And then talk a little about how we got there. Joshua Landis: Well, the book really deals with a period at the time of independence — 1946, ’45, ’46 — in Syria, when the French left and […]

With respect to international law, in what ways does this intervention in Libya differ from those carried out in Afghanistan and Iraq? The intervention in Afghanistan, despite protestations to the contrary, was not authorized by the Security Council, whose relevant resolutions did not even mention Afghanistan, let alone authorize “all necessary means.”  That was because […]

The Benghazi council chose as its leader the colorless former justice minister Mustafa Abdel Jalil.  Jalil’s brain is Mahmoud Jibril, a former head of the National Economic Development Board (NEDB).  A U.S. embassy cable from May 11, 2009 (09TRIPOLI386) describes Jibril as keen on a close relationship with the U.S. and eager “to create a […]

Could it be that Syrian refinery workers thought it wise to warn imperialists not to descend on Syria to liberate their oil and jobs from them in the name of liberating them from Bashar? — Ed. Tartous, Syria, 29 March 2011 Cf. “Syria is the only significant crude oil producing country in the Eastern Mediterranean […]

Paul Jay: So, first of all, talk about what happened on Friday.  The protesters, the opposition, were hoping for a big turnout, and apparently they didn’t get it. Bassam Haddad: On Friday, a few hundred people, in some places more than a thousand, came out in protest, to continue the string of protests since last […]

  Syrian citizens have been shocked by the disturbing events taking place in Dara’a for the last few days, during which violence led to the death of innocent young people, the destruction of public as well as private properties, and demonstrations and unjustified violence.  Demands were raised, some dealing with Dara’a, others going beyond the […]

The Syrian Communist Party (Unified) would like to reiterate what its newspaper An-Nour said on Wednesday, 23 March 2011: it is necessary to restore normal life to Dara’a Governorate, to effectively deal with the consequences of the deplorable events which took place last week, and to do the following while dealing with the problems: 1. […]

Bashar al-Assad is a lucky man.  Even the mother of the Angry Arab (himself no fan of the Syrian president) seems to like him: “As my mom says about him: he is the best educated among Arab leaders (many of whom are illiterate) and it shows.” — Ed. Beirut, Lebanon, 27.03.11 Cairo, Egypt, 31.03.11 Bucharest, […]

Joshua Landis: Well, this [speech delivered by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on 30 March 2011] was a classic hard-line speech.  It was a nationalist speech.  It was an us-against-them speech.  And he rallied the nation.  And that’s what he sought to do.  He was fairly relaxed.  He made some jokes.  But he said this is […]

Millions of Syrians rallied all over Syria, pledging loyalty to the country, in support of Bashar al-Assad, on 29 March 2011.  The dialectic of the regime and the opposition in Syria, it is safe to say, is neither like Tunisia and Egypt, nor like Iraq and Libya.  Instead, it is more like what happened in […]

Bassam Haddad: The differences between Syria and Egypt and Tunisia are several.  This does not mean that things cannot spin out of control to produce the same effect.  But, structurally speaking, the Syrian society is far more heterogeneous and divided than either the Egyptian or the Tunisian society.  So the opposition is not cohesive.  There […]

Bashar al-Assad, unlike other Arab heads of state, appears to have masses of supporters, who took to the streets on 24-26 March 2011, as shown in the videos below.  (Search YouTube for تأييد بشار الأسد, and you’ll find many more lovingly uploaded by his fans.)  However, “God, Syria, only Bashar” and “With our soul and […]

The Empire admits: without Al-Jazeera, they could not have bombed Libya. How did Al-Jazeera, once dubbed the ‘terror network’ by some and whose staff were martyred by US bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan, end up becoming the media war propagandist for yet another Western war against a small state of the Global South, Libya?  We […]

The imperialist killers headed by the USA, France, Britain and NATO as a whole and with the approval of the UN started a new imperialist war.  This time in Libya. Their allegedly humanitarian pretexts are completely misleading!  They throw dust into peoples’ eyes!  Their real goals are the hydrocarbons in Libya. We, the Communist and […]