Syria

Biden’s Bombs: The Dance of Ethics and Interests

On July 7, 2023, at the Blue Grass Army Depot in Kentucky, operators carefully placed an M55 rocket filled with nerve agent onto a machine that drained and neutralized the deadly material. America destroyed its last chemical weapon—the final...

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Wagner Group Licks its Wounds in Belarus

Most analysts have labeled Yevgeny Prigozhin’s attempted rebellion and the Wagner Group mutiny a failure. And in many ways, that’s true. Indeed, Prigozhin and the contingent of Wagner fighters that eschewed signing contracts with the Russian Ministry of Defence...

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Water and Climate Change Will Shape Iraq-Turkey Relations

With Recep Tayyip Erdogan re-elected in May as Turkey’s president for five more years, it is water and related environmental concerns that are poised to be the critical issue at the center of Turkish relations with Iraq, overshadowing and...

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How Erdoğan Managed Victory Despite Kurdish Opposition

Editor’s Note: FPRI is publishing a collection of essays analyzing Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s victory in the Turkish presidential election in May 2023. The articles examine the Kurdish role in the election and the extent to which anti-refugee rhetoric was...

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How the European Union Contributes to Turkey’s Anti-Refugee Rhetoric

Editor’s Note: FPRI is publishing a collection of essays analyzing Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s victory in the Turkish presidential election in May 2023. The articles examine the Kurdish role in the election and the extent to which anti-refugee rhetoric was normalized in the campaign. In addition,...

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Erdoğan’s Syria Policy: Continuation of the Status Quo? 

Editor’s Note: FPRI is publishing a collection of essays analyzing Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s victory in the Turkish presidential election in May 2023. The articles examine the Kurdish role in the election and the extent to which anti-refugee rhetoric was normalized in the campaign. In addition,...

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Big Changes in United Arab Emirates Foreign Policy

Editor’s Note: This paper is based inter alia on insights from a series of meetings and interviews during a recent visit to the Gulf. Diversification and Less Confrontation After a Decade of an Activist Foreign Policy The United Arab...

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What America Learned in Iraq

Editor’s Note: FPRI is publishing a collection of essays to mark the twentieth anniversary of the start of the Iraq War. The articles analyze the war’s impact on US influence in the Middle East, America’s global standing, and US...

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The Turkish Veto: Why Erdogan Is Blocking Finland and Sweden’s Path to NATO

Finland and Sweden grew closer to Western institutions in the post-Cold War era, and EU accession in 1995 meant that Stockholm and Helsinki finally abandoned their neutrality policies. Both countries remained militarily non-aligned but cooperation with NATO increased through...

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Devastating Earthquakes in Turkey Could Fundamentally Alter the Political Landscape

Early in the morning of February 6, two earthquakes devastated southeastern Turkey and northern Syria, collapsing buildings across an astonishing radius of several hundred kilometers. More than 22,000 people have died and tens of thousands more are wounded. Days...

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