Latest writing and updates:
The Century Foundation: "Syrian Opposition Politics—with a Lower-Case ‘p’"
New from me for The Century Foundation:
Meet the Nation Building Movement’s Anas Joudeh, whose work likely represents the far, least-tolerated edge of tolerated opposition politics under a resurgent Assad regime…
War on the Rocks: "This Won't Look Like Winning: A Sensible Path for Trump's Syria Policy"
New from me at War on the Rocks:
Donald Trump’s election promises a substantive break with Barack Obama’s Syria policy, but he’s also challenged the policy community’s collective understanding of the Syrian war – and on some points, he’s been mostly correct.
His election and a possible American reorientation on Syria should prompt a larger rethinking of U.S. assumptions about the war, even as we have to be careful not to fall victim to a new and opposite set of dubious ideas…
The Century Foundation: "A Syria Policy for Trump's America"
In a new report for The Century Foundation, I lay out a revised Syria strategy for the United States under President-elect Donald Trump.
U.S. Syria policy had been due for a major rethink, even before the election of Trump. America’s publicly articulated goals in Syria have been impossible for some time now, at least in their most optimistic formulation and using any realistic means…
The Century Foundation: "Keeping the Lights On in Rebel Idlib"
New from me, as part of The Century Foundation’s “Arab Politics beyond the Uprisings”: “Keeping the Lights On in Rebel Idlib.”
The brief is a dive into local governance in rebel-held Idlib province, where residents have attempted to fill the administrative void left by the Assad regime. In the process, Idlib’s governance and service sector has become another space for Idlibi civilians and Islamist and jihadist armed groups – which have developed their own service bodies – to compete for popular support and legitimacy, even as they work to keep foreign assistance coming and to keep Idlib livable in the middle of a civil war…
Foreign Policy: "Assad Will Talk, But He Won’t Negotiate"
New from me at Foreign Policy:
The Assad regime invited us into Damascus, in an apparent attempt to demonstrate its openness and appeal to Western opinion. But it mostly just showed us how it hadn’t changed – and that maybe it doesn’t know how…
The Century Foundation: "What It’s Like to Meet Assad in Damascus"
New for the Century Foundation:
I talk with Thanassis Cambanis about my attendance at last week’s conference-junket in Damascus and what the Syrian government seemed to want from the event…
The Century Foundation: "Failed Ceasefire Bonds Syrian Rebels and U.S. Government"
New from me for The Century Foundation:
Recent diplomatic efforts to reach a ceasefire in Syria and facilitate an end to the country’s war have been mostly bilateral, negotiated by the United States and Russia in Geneva. But U.S. diplomacy has been underpinned by a direct channel to a core set of rebel factions necessary to the success of any ceasefire. The running dialogue with these factions has seemingly been key to U.S. leverage in Geneva and is likely to figure prominently into other agreements going forward…
The Century Foundation panel: "The Cost of Syria's Collapse"
Video of The Century Foundation’s 19 September panel on Syria, featuring me, Deborah Amos, Thanassis Cambanis, and Michael Wahid Hanna…
The Century Foundation: "Syria’s Rebels Lose a Symbolic Stronghold"
New from me for The Century Foundation:
Rebel Darayya has fallen. The Damascus suburb meant vastly different things to each side of the war, but both sides seem to recognize the town’s fall as a harbinger of regime victory on what is arguably Syria’s most important front—the interior of the western corridor running down Syria’s Mediterranean coast to Damascus, sometimes called “useful Syria”…
The Century Foundation: "In Syrian Proxy War, America Can Keep Its Hands Clean or It Can Get Things Done"
New from me for The Century Foundation:
Amateur footage of a Syrian rebel beheading a captive in the back of a pickup truck ought to be a wake-up call – sometimes, this is what proxy war looks like. So is the United States in or out? …
On AlHurra: Jabhat al-Nusrah and Its Break with al-Qaeda
My appearance on AlHurra TV with Mona Wehbi to discuss Jabhat al-Nusrah and its split with al-Qaeda. (Arabic) …
The Century Foundation: "Al Qaeda Quits Syria in Name Only"
New from me for The Century Foundation on the ostensible end of Syrian al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusrah and why there may be less to Nusrah’s break with al-Qaeda than meets the eye…
The Century Foundation: "Are Syria’s Rebels at Al Qaeda’s Mercy?"
New from me for The Century Foundation:
Syrian al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusrah attacked another northern “Free Syrian Army” brigade earlier this month – but now the episode looks more like an interlude in a power struggle within that brigade than simply an act of Nusra villainy. What that means for disentangling Nusrah and Syria’s rebels…
The Century Foundation: "Four Perspectives on the War in Syria"
New from The Century Foundation, a roundtable discussion of Syria featuring me, Thanassis Cambanis, Michael Hanna and Aron Lund. The piece features our general read on the war and our (mostly pessimistic) take on the policy options now available…
Jabhat al-Nusrah Media Official: "A comment on David Ignatius’s article in the Washington Post"
Below I’ve translated the response from Abu Ammar al-Shami, head of Jabhat al-Nusrah’s media office, to David Ignatius’s July 19 Washington Post article. Abu Ammar’s rebuttal of Ignatius is a demonstration of the political trap the Syrian al-Qaeda affiliate has set for the United States and its allies…
Addendum on the Twitter Account Attributed to Khaz'al al-Sarhan
After the publication of my recent article on the New Syrian Army for The Century Foundation, New Syrian Army commander Khaz’al al-Sarhan has denied that the Twitter account in his name with which I corresponded belonged to him.
A full accounting of my correspondence with the account and attempts to verify it is available at the bottom of the original article. What follows are screenshots of my conversation with the account over DM…
The Century Foundation: "Suppose America Gave a Proxy War in Syria and Nobody Came?"
New from me for the Century Foundation:
Last Wednesday, the New Syrian Army—America’s best, maybe only, hope to challenge the self-proclaimed Islamic State in its east Syrian stronghold—launched a daring attack on the heart of Islamic State territory.
By Thursday, it had gone wrong. Islamic State had been waiting, and the New Syrian Army only barely avoided being annihilated by circling jihadists…
War on the Rocks: "Russia Is in Charge in Syria: How Moscow Took Control of the Battlefield and Negotiating Table"
New from me at War on the Rocks:
Russia has leveraged its September 2015 military intervention on behalf of the Assad regime to establish itself as the central military actor in Syria’s war. Russia has, in turn, used its military primacy to oblige others — including the United States — to treat it as the gatekeeper to a negotiated solution to the conflict…
The Daily Beast: "The Home of Syria’s Only Real Rebels"
New from me on The Daily Beast:
Syria’s northwest Idlib province is a tense, sometimes scary place, pulled between Islamist and jihadist factions vying for control but too intertangled to really fight each other. Now Idlib – for better or for worse – has become the heart of Syria’s armed rebellion against the Assad regime…
RFE/RL's "Under the Black Flag" Blog: "Al-Qaeda Speaks The Language Of Syrian Sectarianism"
New from me on RFE/RL’s “Under the Black Flag” blog:
Jabhat al-Nusrah’s top religious official makes an appeal for jihad in Syrian terms – and it turns out that when al-Qaeda wants to tap into an indigenously Syrian sentiment to fuel their jihad, it looks to toxic, even genocidal, sectarianism…