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At the beginning of August 2014 clashes broke out in the Lebanese town of Ersal between armed factions fighting in Syria, among them jihadist groups such as ISIL and the Nusra Front, and the Lebanese army. These clashes continued for five days and ended with the withdrawal of the Syrian fighters from the town as part of an initiative under the auspices of the Association of Muslim Ulema in Lebanon and the Lebanese Institute for Democracy and Human Rights (LIFE). In view of the contradictory accounts and the mutual recriminations, this paper looks at what really happened in Ersal, the background that led the crisis to develop, the positions and calculations of the various sides, and the repercussions in Syria and Lebanon.

Given the unrest boiling in the region, this paper considers the possibility of partitioning the countries of the Levant. Given the state of affairs and current political indicators in Syria and Iraq, which suggest the Kurds have started to regain their national unity and awareness, the group is now the only faction in the Levant fighting on nationalist or ethnic bases. What makes it easier for them to establish a viable Kurdish entity, at the local level, is the fact that they have huge economic, political, human, and military potential. This paper examines local and international contexts and obstacles to the establishment of a Kurdish state. It also argues that it will be unlikely, meanwhile, that sectarian entities could be created in Syria and Iraq given current local and international circumstances. Indeed, sectarian tension is nothing more than social tension that is the result of imbalance in the distribution of wealth and power, and the result of political authoritarianism. Therefore, the warring groups are not part of the framework of separatist tendencies; though they are liable to turn into sectarian nationalisms due to foreign intervention and agendas.

Conference "Christian Arabs in the Greater Mashreq: Determinants of Continuity, Emigration and Forced Migration"

Through a critical review, this paper examines the most important issues raised during the political forum for "The Washington Institute," a forum devoted to the discussion of US policies in the Middle East. This is based in a belief of the importance of critical interaction with the outcomes of policy centers in the United States, given the global significance of these centers in terms of impact on American foreign policy making or critical discussions aimed at understanding what the Washington institute promotes. A critical view is needed in particular around the Zionist and Israeli interests of the institute. The paper also focusses on the objectives of the political forum, and a call for redefining the allies of the US in the region and the establishment of a strategic constellation of allies that include Israel and other Arab countries.​

Multiple International Relations theories brand the international system as anarchist. What is meant by anarchy here is the absence of a central authority at international level to settle conflicts between actors in the international system. This is why states always seek to attain more power, but to do so they cannot adopt idealist policies in the global arena. This theory applies to the way international powers dealt with the Arab revolutions in 2011. International interests in some cases played a key role in the revolutions' development and outcomes. This study characterizes the nature of the international system on the eve of the Arab revolutions and analyzes the degree to which these revolutions interacted with the international system and their outcomes based on the characterization it infers.

Since the time of President Thomas Jefferson, and on through the presidents of the 20th century, the United States has talked about itself as the propagator, protector, and defender of democracy around the world. Yet America has never showed any qualms of forming military and political alliances with authoritarian regimes in Latin America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. The US justifies these international alliances on the basis that “not all dictatorships in the world are enemies of the United States, but all the United States’ enemies are dictatorships.” The US therefore adopted a two-track diplomacy: while working to spread democracy (directly or by means of international organizations and NGOs) the US has no issue in supporting autocratic governments when its interests are involved. How did US policy apply to the democratic transformation in the former Eastern bloc states in Europe on the eve of the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and subsequently, when American values and interests went hand in hand, and how did it then apply to the Arab Spring of 2011, when US values and interests were congruent in some cases and out of sync in others, according to the situation in each country and its strategic importance from America’s perspective? What are the results of these policies and what differences emerge from such a comparison of the Arab and East Europe cases.

Following the transformations in the Levant’s regional system since the beginning of World War II to the rise of the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria, this paper examines the new context of the region with regard to Washington’s resumption of direct military intervention. It finds that the Levant – as a soft area easily subject to geopolitical influences – has always been subject to changes based on shifts in world order, from the Cold War, followed by unipolarity, to the relative decline of US power. Thus, while the main actors of the Levant’s regional system were Arabs during the Cold War, the region has become a battleground for non-Arab parties – namely Turkey and Iran – following the invasion or Iraq and the eruption of the Arab Spring revolutions.

This study attempts to determine the latest changes in the US-Saudi alliance and reflect on its destabilization. Specifically, it aims to determine whether the current crisis in US-Saudi relations might actually lead to a rift. Alternatively, the current events could be nothing but a temporary breakup depending on each country’s vision of its interests, after which relations could resume. The study reached some important results. It concluded, for example, that the speculation of a collapse of the US-Saudi alliance and its replacement with the US-Iranian alliance is farfetched and lacks depth. It is politically impossible and strategically inoperable for the US to side with Iran at the expense of Saudi Arabia amid the current polarization.

This paper presents in-depth, eyewitness testimony to the progress of events through the earliest stages of the Syrian revolution, and chronicles how the protests spread. Specifically, it covers the junction when a de-escalation of the protests became difficult, once demands for regime change were solidified on the part of the protestors.

This study provides a discussion and analysis of the circumstances that led to the military occupation of the core of the state and government in contemporary Algeria, and the ramifications for the process of building political and legal institutions, and the democratic transition experience. The study employs the concepts of populism and neopatrimonialism to paint a picture of the path taken by the government in Algeria since independence. Populism describes the ideology that sanctified the one-party state and revolutionary legitimacy, while neopatrimonialism is the resulting shape taken by the exercise of political power. Framing these two concepts within their historical context provides an understanding of the circumstances of the army's seizure of power and its identification with the state. It clarifies the reasons for its refusal to redistribute power within the society after the establishment of political pluralism in the 1989 Constitution.