The assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik al-Hariri in an enormous explosion in Beirut on February 14 sent as many political ripples through the region as questions it raised about the motives and identity of those who carried out the attack.
Since 1967 Israel has been occupying the Golan Heights, which are a Syrian territory wrenched away in a war that has not formally ended; Syria has good legal, moral and political reasons to try to recover its land.
The recent flare-up of ethnic violence involving Syria’s Kurdish minority (apparently inspired by the constitutional gains made by the Kurds in Iraq) and the growing US pressure on Damascus to sign a peace deal with Israel and "end its occupation" of Lebanon, indicate the increasing threats to the stability of a country that is already undermined by the enduring alliance between the ruling Asad dynasty and the Ba’ath party...
The Bush administration, apparently unable or unwilling to learn any lessons from its recent foreign policy debacles, is making the same charges against Syria as it used to justify the invasion of Iraq, which have been shown to be not merely exaggerated but patently false.
Washington increased pressure on Syria last month, immediately after the fall of the Ba’athist regime in Baghdad. Although White House sources privately denied that there were any plans for further military action against other regimes in the region
The world’s attention has been gripped for the past few weeks by US saber-rattling over Iraq. But this war mania has blinded much of the world to other developments in Washington’s open-ended drive to settle scores and “lead the world,” while pretending to fight a “war on terrorism.”
It is long overdue. The Syrian Ikhwan al-Muslimeen has recently demonstrated renewed determination to become a rallying point to unify the country’s opposition. Between August 23 and 25, the Brotherhood held a conference in London, under the slogan “Syria for All Its People.”
The process of political reform in Syria initiated by president Bashar al-Asad after he took office in July 2000 has met its most serious setback. On September 12 Syrian authorities arrested two opposition activists, Habib ‘Issa, a lawyer, and Fawwaz Tello, an engineer.
The success of the Hizbullah in expelling the zionists from Lebanon last year provided a boost to Islamic movements all over the world. After the beginning of the Al-Aqsa intifada, the Hizbullah launched military operations to support the intifada. Here we present the speech of Hizbullah secretary-general SHAIKH SAYYID HASSAN NASRULLAH at the International Conference on the Palestinian Intifada in Iran in April.
Since he became president last July, Bashar al-Asad of Syria has initiated a process of political and economic reform. Asad has issued a series of decrees and submitted several draft laws to the country’s People’s Assembly (parliament) dealing with various aspects of Syrian political and socio-economic life.
The Assads of Syria have a great deal to learn from Jordan’s Hashemite family about the arrangement of a peaceful succession. When, early this year, the dying king Husain dismissed his younger brother and crown-prince of 33 years, the 53-year-old prince Hassan, to clear the way for his son to succeed him, the matter ended there...
When the Syrian ambassador in Washington, Walid al-Mu’allim, recently spoke about his country’s rights in the province of Alexandretta, he also signaled that the turbulent relations between Syria and Turkey have inched closer toward a crisis point.
How events can spiral out of control in the Middle East is illustrated, yet again, by Turkey’s sudden outburst of rage against Syria.
