Showing 1 - 10 of 10
What would happen if Khamenei falls?
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 05/01/2026
» The demonstrations began again in Iran last week, only two years after the "Woman, Life, Freedom" movement convulsed the country for months. However, the current protests are potentially much broader than that episode because they are driven by the collapse in Iran's currency, the rial (now 1,420,000 to the US dollar), and the explosive rise in the cost of living.
Who is truly to blame for the crisis in Syria?
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 11/03/2025
» 'They kidnapped; they killed; they humiliated; they kicked people out of jobs," explained an Alawite writer living in coastal Syria. "One way or another, this was going to happen."
Syria needs another miracle for peace to stay
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 18/12/2024
» They're still celebrating the miraculous fall of the Assad regime in Damascus, and the killing has stopped in Syria except for parts of the north, east and south. So what are the odds that the man whose fighters brought down the regime, Ahmed al-Sharaa, can bring peace, prosperity and even democracy to Syria?
Syria: It's those jihadis on the march again
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 04/12/2024
» One week in, the ceasefire in Lebanon seems to be holding, but everything is connected: only three days later, the civil war in Syria started up again after a de facto four-year truce.
Syria: The rehabilitation of dictator Assad
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 17/05/2023
» There is no justice. Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian dictator whose membership even the Arab League suspended 12 years ago, is off to Riyadh this week to celebrate his re-admission to the organisation. He will pay no price for his many crimes against humanity: the name of the game now is not retribution but 'rehabilitation'.
In Iran, all options to curb crisis are bad
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 25/10/2022
» 'Death to [fill in the blank]!" has been the slogan of choice chanted by Iranian protesters since the glory days of the Islamic Revolution in 1979. ("Death to the Shah!", "Death to America!", etc) It's now forty-three years later, however, and the content has become a bit more nuanced.
Syria's suffered enough: End the sanctions
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 19/03/2021
» The Syrian civil war is 10 years old this week, and it's time to stop it. At least half a million Syrians are dead, a quarter of the pre-war population are refugees abroad, and another quarter are refugees inside Syria. Thirty percent of the country's housing stock is destroyed or badly damaged -- and we have known who won the war for at least four years now.
Look at history, Syrian sanctions won't end war
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 27/06/2020
» Last week the US imposed new sanctions on Syria: a "sustained campaign of economic and political pressure" to end the nine-year war by forcing President Bashar al-Assad to UN-brokered peace talks where he would negotiate his departure from power. Mr Assad's wife was already cross about not being able to shop at Harrod's or Bergdorf Goodman, so he should crumble any day now.
A glimpse of the looming migrant 'Armageddon'
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 06/03/2020
» Turkey has opened the floodgates, and soon Europe will be drowning in immigrants. "Hundreds of thousands have crossed," Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan claimed on television, "and soon it will reach millions." And it must be true because you can see it live on your medium of choice.
Russian ruse may have duped Trump in Syria
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 16/10/2019
» Russia and its Syrian ally Bashar al-Assad win, the Kurds lose, and the United States leaves in disgrace. It has been a hectic few days on the Turkish-Syrian border.