...Spyridon Plakoudas By June 2016, the Kurds of Syria (just 12 percent of the country's total population) controlled almost all of the 822-kilometer Turkish-Syrian border and advanced against Manbij and Raqqa — the Islamic State's resupply center and capital, respectively. How did the Syrian Kurds...

... 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...

...R. Reuben Miller Mediterranean Affairs, Inc. 2000 R. Reuben Miller is professor of political science, University of Colorado,Denver. MQ 11.4-07 Miller 10/16/00 5:28 PM Page 117 The Israeli-Syrian Negotiations R. Reuben...

...Aneta Hlavsová; Kristýna Tamchynová; Radka Havlová This essay analyses the role of public opinion in the formation of US and Turkish policy toward the conflict in Syria. The United States and Turkey were chosen because they are key players in the Syrian conflict. In both countries, public opinion...

...Hafizullah Emadi The Baath Party has ruled Syria with an iron fist since the 1960s, curbing civil liberties and imprisoning and executing anyone who dared oppose its rule. A major anti-Baath struggle erupted in the 1980s as Syrians rebelled, trying to topple the repressive regime. The ruling party...

...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...

... more recent military involvement in the Syrian conflict. The essay argues that Hezbollah exhibits five different identities: Islamic, Shiite, Lebanese, Arab, and resistance. Each has played a significant role in the group's legitimizing of its war decisions, which in turn has provided Hezbollah...

...Evaghoras L. Evaghorou In recent years, the eastern Mediterranean has been characterized by instability and intense competition among states and nonstate actors. This is mainly because of the Syrian crisis, the terrorist activity of the Islamic State in Syria, the competition over energy sources...

... Harris Syrian president Bashar al-Asad’s determination in August 2004 to force an extended Lebanese presidential term for his ally Émile Lahoud inaugu- rated a multifaceted crisis in the Levant. Bashar mistakenly assumed that he could railroad the West and the Lebanese into accepting a fait...

... 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...

... of the Mediterranean Quarterly — demonstrate how inter- connected the world is, especially with respect to issues that evolved from the Mediterranean region. The civil war in Syria appears intractable as ever in 2013, with relatively low interest in Washington in supporting the Syrian rebel forces — rebels...

... of income. This strategic vision was clear from the very start, when (initially) ISIS and later the IS began taking control of parts of Iraq and Syria and consequently gaining access to several Syrian and Iraqi oil deposits and gas fields. Over the course of 2014, the IS took control of more...

... that destroyed vast sectors of rebuilt infrastructure and cost Lebanon up to $7 billion in damage; the country must now rebuild 130,000 houses and apartments, one hundred bridges, hundreds of buildings in the Shiite neighborhoods of southern Beirut, and miles of roads in the south and Syrian border...

... was Turkish soil inside Syria. Turkey harbors over 2 million Syrian refugees, and nobody knows when they will go back home, if they ever will. Why did Erdogan’s regional policies fail? The answer to this question is based on three levels of analysis. At the individual level, Erdogan’s foreign policy...

..., large and populous Syria is limited by an attack corridor that is narrow and mountainous, making a military assault both difficult and risky. Israeli control of the Golan Heights further limits Syrian military options and provides Israel with a strategic vantage point visvis Syria. Israel’s princi...

...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...

... would not welcome a long-term U.S. occupation force. Syria did not want to be part of this (as Egypt under President Hosni Mubarak did not). At the same time there were U.S. concerns about munitions and arms being smug- gled into Iraq from Syria, especially by senior Syrians with strong Baath party...

... 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...

... With no signs of abatement in the Syrian war, the sharp escalation of vio- lence in Iraq, and the collapse of the Israeli-­Palestinian peace talks, it takes a great deal of strength and fortitude to remain optimistic about a stabiliza- tion of the Middle East and the establishment of a just...

... the Turks to reoccupy key border areas. The Syrians, having fought the Turks for inde- pendence, rose several times in fierce revolts against the French. The French reacted with a combination of overwhelming and brutal military force and a divide-­and-­conquer policy pitting ethnic groups against...