28 May 2019
Iran has little incentive to help the Assad regime resolve its acute oil crisis, while any help from Moscow will come at a steep price, argues Salam Alsaadi.
Hezbollah
A quick English summary of our Arabic news coverage this week.
44 years ago this month, Lebanon descended into civil war. In the first of a three-part series, Joey Ayoub draws on the work of James Baldwin to explore the "Othering" that resulted from that war and its aftermath, which is now a central component of Lebanese identity.
The Assad regime’s “Terrorism Financing Commission” recently accused Turkey’s president, Lebanon’s prime minister, and a host of other politicians, judges, academics, and ordinary citizens of supporting jihadism. The laughable charges better describe Assad’s own record, writes James Snell.
Russia told south Syria’s rebel commanders it would protect them if they agreed to “reconcile” with the regime last summer. Dozens have since been killed or arrested.
The Israeli strikes that led to the Syrian regime downing a Russian plane Monday night were only the latest in over 200 carried out since 2017; a relentless campaign that has nonetheless done nothing to imperil Assad’s grip on the country.
The State Department’s new Representative for Syria Engagement, James Jeffrey, co-authored a paper last month outlining his vision for US Syria policy. The fall of Idlib Province to the regime and its allies would leave his proposals dead in the water.
Seeing Beirut slide into war in 2006 transformed the late TV presenter, moving him to humanize peoples—in the Middle East and beyond—whose voices were rarely heard in the US mainstream.
The shocking jail sentence issued by Lebanon’s military court against journalist Hanin Ghaddar has been called “one of the worst free speech violations in years.”