Lebanon

President Bashar al Assad of Syria has lately seemed to be doing everything possible to make himself an ex-dictator—and this week he took yet another step in that direction. Ironically, his latest mistake was not some egregious act of oppression or deceit—though he has in the past been guilty of

Bashar al-Assad's rule of Syria has been characterized by vacillation and a constant pattern of miscalculation. Whether his regime can survive its most profound error and the potential loss of its control of Lebanon remains to be seen. For now, U.S. policy, while emphasizing the need for full implementation of

On the heels of its military withdrawal from Lebanon, Syria is preparing for the Tenth Regional Congress of the Baath Party, the first such congress in five years and only the second in twenty years. Prior to the regional congress, scheduled for June, the party will hold a national pan-Arab

President George W. Bush’s March 15 statement expressing hope that Hizballah would prove not to be a terrorist organization, “laying down arms and not threatening peace,” suggests a conundrum for policymakers: how do you treat a chameleonic body that is simultaneously an important political party and an armed terror group

President George W. Bush recently stated, “The elections in Lebanon must be fully and carefully monitored by international observers.” Already, Lebanese prime minister Omar Karami has issued a de facto invitation to former president Jimmy Carter to fulfill that role. Some skepticism is warranted, particularly with regard to the notion

Arab leaders meet in Algiers on March 22 for an Arab League summit, at a moment of high tension within Lebanon over the pace and extent of Syria’s military withdrawal and the future domestic political map. Despite the important roles many of the summiteers have played in urging Damascus to

The Bush Administration's policy of "constructive instability" in the Middle East is facing a critical juncture in Lebanon. Taking advantage of a rare confluence of events and international interests, President George W. Bush has focused U.S. efforts on one plank of UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1559 -- the withdrawal

When Bashar al-Asad assumed power in 2001, there was widespread optimism that he would, by virtue of his British education and Western outlook, modernize the Syrian government and expand individual and political rights. Yet, after a short period of preliminary change, dubbed the "Damascus Spring," Asad proved unwilling or unable

The following lecture was published as a chapter in Confronting Terrorism Financing, American Foreign Policy Council (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2005). The age of “network terrorism” results from the loosely affiliated networks that, taken together, form the potent international terrorist threat that challenges Western civilization today. Such networks