... than five hundred articles and studies on international affairs. He is a member of the editorial advisory board of Mediterranean Quarterly . Copyright 2013 by Mediterranean Affairs, Inc. 2013 Tangled Web: The Syrian Civil War and Its Implications...

...Anthony N. Celso Little has been written about the Syrian Civil War and its relationship to the 1980s revolutionary period. This essay examines this historical connection and emphasizes the unique features that drive the current rebellion. The essay has five sections. First, it lays out...

..., success in the midst of a vicious sectarian civil war. Syrian Civil War Turkey ISIS PYD Assad Obama Doctrine PKK Copyright 2017 by Mediterranean Affairs, Inc. 2017 Spyridon Plakoudas is a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Macedonia. He previously taught at Panteion...

... the link among the notions of identity, war, and just cause. The main area of concern is how identities influence the way in which wars are legitimized. The nonstate actor, Lebanese Hezbollah, is examined by comparing its conflicts with Israel and its intervention in the Syrian civil war. The first...

... opposite Russia with respect to the Syrian Civil War, and other nearby countries, such as Romania and Bulgaria, are fearful of Moscow’s influence after witness- ing Russian military success against Georgia in 2008 and, since 2014, Rus- sia’s annexation of Crimea and support for separatists in Ukraine...

... or creating an independent Kurdish state. Of particular importance regarding the Syrian crisis and the effect of ISIS is Turkey and its relations with the Islamic terrorists. Initially, Turkey unofficially supported the Islamic extremist fighters in the Syrian Civil War and had invested...

... in these societies, accordingly, has given al Qaeda a strategic opening to mobilize. The Syrian civil war, moreover, and the emergence of al Qaeda affiliates Al Nusra Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in the war-­ravaged country is offered as further 3. James Jay Carfano, “Replace...

... the West and cleanse the Muslim world of Shiite and Alawite apostasy. This revival of the proclaimed caliphate was driven mainly by passions generated by the Syrian civil war. By 2013 the war had attracted more than ten thousand Sunni foreign fighters hostile to Damascus’s Alawite-­dominated...

... the Mediterranean coast to Bahrain in the Persian Gulf. As the Syrian crisis deepens, it is likely that the political fallout along the fault line and outside it will increase. For policy planners in the West who are deter- mined that no direct external involvement in the Syria civil war is feasible...

... thousand people have died so far in the Syrian civil war. Let alone preventing massacres in Syria, Turkey did not even suffi- ciently retaliate when Syria downed a Turkish military jet or allegedly staged twin bombings in the border town of Reyhanli — the deadliest single terrorist act...

... killed and millions have became refugees or been displaced. The Assad regime accuses Washington of supporting terrorists while the rebels blame the United States for not doing enough. Kenneth Pollack from the Brookings Institution argues that the Syrian civil war will smolder for a long time...

... by Mediterranean Affairs, Inc. 2014 The Modern Geopolitics of the Cyprus Question John Sitilides Amid the heightened tensions in the eastern Mediterranean — rooted in Syrian civil war, the Egyptian military’s overthrow of the Muslim Brother- hood regime, and the pervasive lawlessness along...

... by regional adversaries such as Iran are balanced by simmering instability of US regional allies Turkey and Egypt, while the Syrian civil war presents its 1. Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000 (London: Fontana, 1989), 665 – 6...

...); and the Russian intervention to prop up the Bashar al-­Assad regime in the already complicated Syrian civil war. These new issues in 2015 have dramatically raised the likelihood of military error or political miscal- culation, bringing two major extraregional powers, such as the United States and Russia...

... in the Twenty-­First Century  25 and exhibited provocative behavior against both naval and civilian shipping across the maritime domains in Europe. This new Russian assertiveness now seems to be spreading to the Medi- terranean, where Russia has directly intervened in the Syrian civil war...

... accentuated the growing sectarian nature of the conflict. The opera- tions that started through the Quds Force, a subgroup of the Islamic Revo- lutionary Guard Corps, caused increasing civilian casualties in Syria. Later, with the full involvement of Hezbollah in the Syrian Civil War, the situation...

..., 15 Decem- ber 2014, www.consilium.europa.eu/ueDocs/cms_Data/docs/pressdata/EN/foraff/146293.pdf. 30. See Emile Hokayem, “Iran, the Gulf States and the Syrian Civil War,” Survival 56, no. 6 (2014): 70. Bahgat: Geopolitics of Energy  61 and survival...

... Energy Despite clear strains over multiple issues, including the Syrian civil war and US missile defense plans, the United States and Russia enjoy a general con- vergence of interest in facilitating development of Levant offshore energy. At the same time, however, the development of Israeli...

... to improvement in US-­Syrian relations, and US companies began to explore oil-­drilling opportunities in Dayr al-­Zur in the northeastern region of Syria. When civil war erupted in Lebanon in 1975, Assad intervened soon afterward in support of the predominantly progovernment conservative Maronites against...

...Magnus Nordenman Copyright 2017 by Mediterranean Affairs, Inc. 2017 From the Managing Editor Magnus Nordenman At the time this issue of the Mediterranean Quarterly went to press, the civil war in Syria raged, with Aleppo having fallen in the face of a combined assault by Syrian...