Hafez al-Assad
Assad's Sarin Was Made on Our Land
When the Assad regime expropriated land outside Damascus from local farmers, it became part of a chemical weapons facility. Across Syria, similar injustices occurred, and so far the new government has offered nothing to the families who still hold their title deeds.
Return of the Prodigal Uncle
For decades, whenever Rifaat came back to Damascus, there was something that he wanted. But by the time he returned to Damascus weeks ago, Syria had moved far beyond all of his former positions and wishes.
Archaeology Turns Political to Benefit a Trio of Middle East Strongmen
Both Saddam and Assad recognized the value of their countries’ archaeological heritage and adapted it to suit their interpretations of what they thought the Baath Socialist Party should be.
The Wandering Alawite
Syria's Alawite minority have always been painfully aware of the fragility of sectarian coexistence. Many of us preferred one dictator, Bashar al-Assad, to a Syria broken into multiple sectarian dictatorships. So, despite reservations, despite its repression, we still stuck by the regime.
Syria’s House of Poetry
Roula Roukbi is among the few Damascus socialites who created an alternative space for art, culture, and some politics in the city. She excelled at living as if Syria was a free country, and in many respects, her hotel came to embody a microcosm of what freedom might one day look like.
How Israel Weighed Its Syria Policy, Before and After the Uprising
The outbreak of the Syrian uprising caught Israel by surprise. Here a former negotiator considers how close Syria and Israel got to a peace deal before the revolution – and how, as the civil war unfolded, Israel’s thinking evolved on how to respond to the war next door.
When Assad’s End Comes
For fifty years, just one family has ruled Syria. But even that rule, long and brutal though it is, will have an end, and a new Syrian story can begin.