Syria

What kind of life is Putin offering the Syrian dictator?

It is too early to speak of Putin’s strategic defeat

Xi has given Assad strong diplomatic and political support, while offering to help him rebuild his war-torn country

Iran’s strategy now appears increasingly unsustainable

Assad, for all his many flaws, was also seen in Washington as a counterbalance to the jihadists that would take over the country

Syria never became a great patriotic project for his Kremlin

Abu Muhammad al-Julani decoupled his movement from al-Qaeda and rebranded it in more moderate colors in 2016

As rebels enter Damascus, Assad has fled

He is using the two-and-a-half months between Election Day and Inauguration Day to re-plunge himself into the world of international diplomacy

The lazy assumptions of many abroad that the war was over, that it had reached equilibrium, that it was even stable, have been shown to be false