In The News

A Syrian Lesson for India

Nayan Chanda September 11, 2013
The United Nations monitors global weather conditions, population growth, security and refugee populations, and the trends are interconnected in many complex ways. In Syria, severe drought between 2006 and 2010 turned more than half the land into desert, contributing to a vicious civil war: Drought and water shortages led to unemployment, forcing hundreds of thousands into Syria’s cities – many...

Dignity Deficit Fuels Uprisings in the Middle East

Nayef Al-Rodhan September 10, 2013
The Arab Spring has pummeled a region with waves of hope for recovering lost dignity, short-lived success and then despair and more despair. Unending conflict has killed many and left millions more refugees. The international community has long empowered brutal dictators, in pursuit of oil or short-term stability, and then pointedly ignored dire conditions, overlooking blatant violations of human...

Syria Strike Would Put Peace Further Out of Reach

Patrick M. Regan September 6, 2013
Research suggests that foreign intervention makes conflicts last longer: “A significant amount of research, including my own, demonstrates that military interventions from outside states lengthen and make bloodier civil wars,” writes Patrick Regan, political scientist and peace advocate. “The data include roughly 1,000 interventions into 100 civil wars over the last 60 years, with research...

Iran’s Unwavering Support to Assad’s Syria

Karim Sadjadpour August 30, 2013
Syria depends on steady military and economic support from Iran. “The surprising endurance of the Iran-Syria alliance is made more striking by the fact that it is based on neither shared national interests nor religious values,” but shared contempt for Iraq under Saddam Hussein, as well as the United States and Israel, writes Karim Sadjadpour in an opinion essay for the Combating Terrorism Center...

Syria Is Dying

Azeem Ibrahim August 29, 2013
A brutal civil war reigns in Syria, as demonstrated by scenes of a neighborhood waking to a chemical attack that killed hundreds. International critics allege that the regime, clinging to power, is responsible for the attack, even as the United Nations investigates. The country has become the center for a regional proxy war and a battleground for the two leading branches of Islam, explains Azeem...

The Case Against War in Syria

Oona Hathaway, Scott Shapiro August 29, 2013
Scenes of lifeless bodies and Syrian children suffering from a chemical attack trigger an urge for immediate action. The most likely suspect behind the attacks is Syrian forces protecting dictator Bashar al-Assad. At the very least, the regime failed to protect its stockpiles of chemical weapons. But an outraged world should be patient: “unleashing even limited military force without U.N....

Syria Opposition Demands Urgent UN Probe into Alleged Chemical Attacks

Dominic Evans, Khaled Yacoub Oweis August 22, 2013
Video footage from Syria shows scores of children and adults left writhing, convulsing and dead after an alleged chemical-weapons attack. The death toll is estimated at 500 to 1300, reports Reuters. Syria has stockpiles of chemical weapons; Western nations have threatened intervention if such weapons were used. Opposition forces in Syria urge an immediate investigation by the United Nations....