Bashar al-Assad Archives - Public Seminar

Politics

Did Putin Dupe Xi?

Plus: “Catastrophic hunger,” Ketanji Brown Jackson’s path to the Supreme Court, the Putinization of US Evangelicals, and an 11-point plan that will make the hair stand up on the back of your neck

March 21, 2022 • by Heather Cox Richardson

This week, President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping spoke about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, speaking personally for the first time since last November. In early February, before the invasion, Xi and Russian president Vladimir Putin met and issued a 5000-word statement pledging limitless “friendship.” But it ...

Europe & Central Asia

A Letter to the Western Left From Kyiv

Critique of liberal internationalism cannot add up to support for the ‘spheres of interest’ doctrine

March 4, 2022 • by Taras Bilous

A large part of the western Left, focused on NATO and the USA, failed to see Russian aggression. Of course, the war on terror needs to be brought into the discussion – but critique of liberal internationalism cannot add up to support for the ‘spheres of interest’ doctrine....

Middle East & North Africa

The Slaying of Qassem Soleimani

This assassination by the United States exceeds its immediate implications for war

January 7, 2020 • by Hussein Banai

Although he has long been on the radar of policymakers around the world, Soleimani’s profile had only recently come to public attention in the West, owing largely to his instrumental role in expanding the Islamic Republic’s sphere of influence in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen. He was particularly known, and ...

Feature

What Do Military Attacks Accomplish?

Effective Action in Syria

May 1, 2018 • by Richard D. Anderson

When, on April 7, Syrian aircraft dropped canisters of toxic chlorine -- and maybe the chemical weapon sarin -- on the city of Douma, in an attack that killed seventy civilians, for once President Donald Trump spoke the truth: he called repeated chemical attacks “crimes of a monster.” On April ...

Blue Monday

Damascus Blues

On the bombing of Syria

April 16, 2018 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

"I merely took the energy it takes to pout, and I wrote some blues." -Duke Ellington As promised by our Bloviator-in-Chief, we bombed Syria last Friday, inauspiciously the 13th of April. It was not the first time the United States has bombed Syria. The US has been conducting a low-intensity air war against ISIS, in ...

Feature

Putin May Have Bombed His Own Metro

It is not unthinkable. He’s done it before.

April 19, 2017 • by Jordan Luber

There was a vile terrorist attack in Russia on April 3rd, 2017. Some coward who believes his cause is greater than human life put a bomb on a metro car. It exploded while the car was in transit, passing between two of the busiest stations in St. Petersburg. A blast ...