As humanitarian aid pours in, the Syrian leader hopes to break out of isolation—but one major obstacle to regional normalization remains. Can Assad’s earthquake diplomacy help thaw his relations with Saudi Arabia?

Read my latest for @AlMonitor: al-monitor.com/originals/2023… Emirati diplomats have led the campaign to promote international re-engagement with Damascus after the earthquake.

Here’s what @DEsfandiary told me on that subject: al-monitor.com/originals/2023… @AlMonitor

New @CenturyIntl book!

Broken Bonds: The Existential Crisis of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, 2013–22

Outstanding research by @3yyash, @AmrElafifi, and @EzzatNohy.

👉Buy print copy: tcf.org/content/book/b…
👉Read online: tcf.org/content/report…
👉Free PDF: production-tcf.imgix.net/app/uploads/20… One of the author’s of @CenturyIntl’s new book, Broken Bonds, @3yyash, talks about his upbringing in a Muslim Brotherhood family in the Egyptian Nile Delta and what the Ikhwan are like from the inside.

Listen here: tcf.org/content/podcas…

Cholera has returned to Syria, where half of the population is forced to drink unsafe water.

In this new @CenturyIntl report, I try to explain Syria’s rapidly accelererating water crisis and what the world can do to avert a catastrophic final breakdown.

tcf.org/content/report… New report from @CenturyIntl:

Syria’s drinking water supply is down 40 percent and half of all water and sanitation systems are broken—and the crisis has been left to fester. Unsurprisingly, waterborne disease is now starting to spread across the region. tcf.org/content/report…

Why is Turkey threatening to attack Kurdish-held northern Syria again, and why hasn’t it done so already?

In this @FOIresearch mini-report, I look at the lead-up to today’s crisis and how it is tied to Syria-Turkey relations, Russia, and the Ukraine War.

foi.se/report-summary… On May 23, Erdogan vowed to send troops into Syria, but then nothing happened and the saber-rattling trailed off—until the Nov. 13 Istanbul bombing.

Read my @FOIresearch backgrounder on how Russia managed to steer Turkey into talks with Assad’s Syria: foi.se/report-summary…

Assad has named Maj. Gen. Ali Mahmoud Abbas as Syria’s new defense minister and deputy supreme commander, succeeding Lt. Gen. Ali Abdullah Ayyoub, who held the post since 2018.
• Decree: sana.sy/?p=1638122
• Official bio: mod.gov.sy/index.php?node…
Some quick comments below… Abbas is a 57-year old armor officer born in Efrah in Wadi Barada, a Sunni region west of Damascus. According to his official biography, he had until now served as Syria’s deputy chief of staff, a position to which he was only recently appointed—in March 2021.

IS, which fares poorly in Iraq and just lost its leader, likely sees attacking Israelis as a way to rebuild its reputation among jihadis. But these recent attacks may have been homegrown/undirected and, says @AAhronheim, one was perhaps not even IS linked. jpost.com/middle-east/ar… An IS (Aamaq) claim of responsibility, for both attacks, can be found here, via @NihadJariri:

https://twitter.com/NihadJariri/status/1508212146479456257

New report!

From Tartous to Tobruk: The Return of Russian Sea Power in the Eastern Mediterranean

120 pages on the eastern Mediterranean’s growing importance, Russia’s new naval presence, and how they fit together—by Jonas Kjellén and me for @FOIresearch.
foi.se/en/foi/reports… We look at the eastern Mediterranean region and why it matters:
• Rising maritime trade
• Suez and the Turkish Straits are global chokepoints for goods, food, oil
• New gas discoveries
• Lots of conflicts, old and new: Cyprus, Palestine, Syria, Libya…
foi.se/en/foi/reports…

Looking at the debates about U.S. Afghanistan policy, much is different from Syria, but one thing strikes me as very similar: wildly unrealistic assumptions were made about some of the most basic elements of the conflict, poisoning policy development at an early date. (🧵1/10)

https://twitter.com/EvansRyan202/status/1426984833717137412

In the Syrian case, U.S. policy was for years—and in a formal sense, still is—hitched to the idea that proxy war/sanctions could be used to induce a broad compromise. Assad’s state/military would be incorporated into a nicer, secular-ish elected government sharing power between:

An Unconventional Canal: Will Turkey Rewrite the Rules for Black Sea Access?

In a new background briefing for @FOIresearch I look at how Erdogan’s canal project could affect the Montreux Convention and the Russia/NATO naval power balance.

Read it here: foi.se/rapportsammanf… I’m a little daft, so I made my English-language tweet link to the Swedish-language version of FOI’s website.

Instructions:

• Follow the red arrow.
• Click the blue button.
• Brace yourself as you transform, werewolf-like, into an expert on Black Sea/Mediterranean security.

Economic sanctions can’t be judged on their stated goals alone, says @NRC_Egeland: “if people can’t get medical treatment or go hungry because of fear of falling foul of sanctions, then those imposing them bear the responsibility.” nrc.no/news/2020/apri… nrc.no/news/2020/apri… The EU extends its Syria sanctions for another year. consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press… The Syrian Foreign Ministry’s response doesn’t just sound angry—they always sound angry—but disappointed, as if they’d been led to expect something else: “falseness … hypocrisy.” sana.sy/en/?p=192673

My understanding:

https://twitter.com/Streitapfel/status/1215628204825890823

1a.
• It lets UN send medical supplies that Damascus bans.
• UN acts as political cover for NGOs, which matters a lot to some of them and might be crucial in inducing Iraqi cooperation.
• NGOs lack UN's capacity to plan/coordinate. 1b.
• More of a humanitarian crisis could help IS respawn. It would also make al-Hol a bigger problem than it already is.
• Decline in aid from Iraq would force SDF to ask for it from Damascus, increasing Assad's influence in talks with SDF, undercutting US-Fra-UK strategy.

How did the Islamic State pick its new leader? In a new piece for @jihadica, I look at what we can learn about the extremist group's internal succession mechanisms from how it announced the name of its new leader. jihadica.com/how-did-the-is… @jihadica Sources: the text is really only about the excerpt seen above, but @Jihadology_Net has Abu Hamzah's full speech: jihadology.net/2019/10/31/new… and al-Naba #206, which includes an Arabic transcript: jihadology.net/2019/10/31/new… There's also @ajaltamimi's translation: aymennjawad.org/2019/10/islami…

What You Need to Know About Trump’s Syria Decision tcf.org/content/commen… New for @TCFdotorg! @TCFdotorg You should immediately read my just-published article on Trump's Syria decision: tcf.org/content/commen… and then you can scroll through this thread of relevant articles at a more leisurely pace:

https://twitter.com/aronlund/status/1181103092072423424

Contrary to what Syrian and Russian state media claimed yesterday, OPCW has not been able to enter Douma to investigate alleged gas attacks. Syrian authorities approved a visit, but when UN security officers did a test run, they were fired upon and bombed. opcw.org/fileadmin/OPCW… According to a report in Enab Baladi, a pro-opposition newspaper that cited local sources in Douma, two car bombs exploded at the site of the reported chemical attacks yesterday. enabbaladi.net/archives/221848