By Jeffry R. Halverson Unlike the protests of the Arab Spring in Tunisia and Egypt, the campaigns underway against the Assad regime in Syria have a distinctly sectarian character. The Assad regime is dominated by the Alawites, a little-known esoteric Shi‘ite sect. However, the majority of Syria’s population is Sunni Muslim (approx. 75%). And caught [...]

by Chris Lundry In our work identifying and tracking the use of Islamist narratives here at the CSC, the second most frequently invoked among Islamist extremists in our research (after Nakba or Palestine) has been the Crusader master narrative. The use of this term among Islamists connotes religious war, subjugation by Western Christians, injustice, and eventual colonization. [...]

by Steven R. Corman At a conference two and a half years ago I met Sami Hajjar. He was born in Lebanon, and has served in a number of diplomatic posts in the Middle East. Later he was on the faculty at the U.S. Army War College and a member of its Strategic Studies Institute. [...]

by Ed Palazzolo Senior Hezbollah leader, Imad Mughniyeh, was killed Tuesday, 12 February 2008, by a car bomb in Damascus. Mughniyeh has been on the FBI’s Most Wanted list for over 20 years. Mughniyeh was an intelligence leader for Hezbollah’s secretive military branch, he was believed to be responsible for taking Western hostages in Lebanon, [...]

Fostering ripe relationships with Syria will allow for more negotiation as an alternative to military force, an alternative more likely to end an intractable conflict than more violence.

In the case of travel to sensitive areas, US officials should be aware of the possibility that their actions will be oppositionally framed.