The western Syrian town of Qusair has become a fiercely contested battleground between the forces of President Bashar al-Assad and rebel fighters. On 19 May, following weeks of skirmishes and bombardment by artillery and aircraft, government troops backed by Hezbollah militants launched a...

  Here we are again.  An attack . A metropolis. A sensational depiction of violence. A Western victim. These are the thematic artifacts of our current (British) understanding of the “War on Terror.” Regardless of the venue, the perpetrator, or the modus...

For analysts familiar with the politics of Syria, the country’s descent into chaos amounts to an all-too-predictable pattern. It also parallels what  Rami Makhlouf , a major regime figure and first cousin of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, bluntly announced in an interview with...

Endgame for the Syrian National Coalition   The international conference called for by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to end the conflict in Syria may not actually take place. And if it does, it is unlikely to succeed. At...