Syria today is Afghanistan circa 1998. We don't need a crystal ball to see how it will end up if left to its own fate. If, or rather when this war explodes and threatens the regional balance of power, the West will recalculate its current standing of staying on the sidelines.

There is no discernible tactical benefit to the U.S. getting involved in Syria. In fact, there is every reason to stay away -- to let two enemies continue their war against each other to the bitter end, then re-evaluate how to engage (or not) whomever emerges. The only good reason for the Americans to get involved is humanitarian.

BEIRUT - Syrian rebels shot down a military helicopter in the country's east, killing eight government troops on board a day after opposition forces e...

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A senior Israeli military intelligence official said on Tuesday that Syrian President Bashar Assad used chemical weapons las...

As we mark the two-year anniversary of the Arab uprisings, we see plenty of figurative post-mortems on the Arab leaders, or strongmen, that have been usurped by the masses. But what can we learn from these revolutions about the Arab people and the type of government they seek?

Analysts and pundits will be all over themselves trying to find a "winner" in this conflict between Gaza and Israel. While the world's cameras and attention were turned to Gaza and Israel (and rightfully so), the Syrian regime sustained its killing of Syrians at the usual pace of over 100 civilians per day. Not only did Assad gain from having the media shift focus to one of the longest enduring conflicts of the region, the Syrian dictator also benefited from returning the anti-colonialist narratives to deciphering the Middle East.

The announcement in Qatar on November 10 of the formation of the Syrian National Coalition with an elected president is an event of monumental importance, in my opinion. There will be the usual misgivings and apprehensions about the chaos that is expected to follow the collapse of any of these very long Arab dictatorships but none of that will materialize, and the Syrian nation as a whole will do quite well, with a little help from its friends.

The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung called it boldly and rightly a Marshall Plan for Syria -- as a working group lead by our diplomats is helping the Syrian opposition to endorse a free market economy and leave behind Assad's socialism. The initiative by the German Foreign Ministry doesn't come a second too early.

After a year or so of killing people in areas that protest his dictatorship, Assad apparently has agreed to withdraw troops from killing zones -- starting some 10 days after making his promise to former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. What the hiatus does is give Syrian forces breathing space to further crush anti-government elements and destroy towns that harbour rebels.

The recent six-point multilateral agreement on Syria is a breakthrough for those seeking to end the country's horrific yearlong bloodbath. But despite overwhelming agreement that the killing must stop, a lack of shared opinion on whom or what to support now threatens to dash any hope of a ceasefire taking effect.

Now that a new constitution has been passed, is it even remotely conceivable that Syria's president is planning to resume his ophthalmological practice at the end of his current term? Or is he saying he would step aside in 2026, by which time who knows what the Middle East will look like?

AP -- China said Saturday that it supports the Arab League's proposals for ending the violence in Syria, a striking show of support just two weeks aft...

Hadeel Kouki is a 20-year-old Syrian Christian who was brutally tortured in prison for distributing leaflets calling on Syrians to march peacefully in the name of freedom. As a student at the University of Aleppo, she was working to build a country not ruled by fear and secret police.

Is this really all we've got? In 10 months no one has come up with a better plan than evadable sanctions, toothless Arab League monitors and a Barbara Walters special? How much longer will we wait before moved to action by the humanitarian ideals that brought liberation to Libya?

After a year of near-nuclear holocausts, tyrant-topplings across the Middle East and Egyptian deities popping up in testicular tumours, we're all aski...