The Endgame: America’s Exit from Syria

Ever since the 2011 Arab Spring protests in Syria fueled civil war costing nearly half a million lives to date, the US response has been cautious indecision. Syria became a proxy war with Russia, Iran, Hezbollah, the Turks, ISIS, the Kurds, and the local Syrian opposition all competing to support or oust Assad. All but the Kurds and select Syrian resistance groups opposed America. With billions spent on questionable war efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq, President Obama, the American public, and most of the military establishment were leery of direct US involvement in Syria. Apart from supporting the fight against ISIS and half-hearted demands that Bashar al Assad step aside as leader of Syria, neither President Obama nor President Trump have committed US troops to achieving anything more comprehensive. Optimally, the US should encourage multilateral efforts to negotiate Assad’s removal from office with Russia, address Turkish fears of Kurdish independence, or pressure Iran and Hezbollah to withdraw from Syria. Under present circumstances facing US policymakers, such optimizing is illusory. Whatever the limits and possibilities of USFP in the region today, it is clear that America needs a tactical retreat to reconsolidate its power and purpose to fight its Russian and Iranian foes another day when the direct stakes for American interests are higher

Partition: It’s time to recognise reality in Syria

The creation of an Alawi-minority coastal canton is a sine qua non for cutting the Gordian knot that is the Syrian conflict, argues Eric Kaufmann

Indonesians and the Syrian conflict

Introduction: The conflict in Syria has captured the imagination of Indonesian extremists in a way no foreign war has before. For the first time, Indonesians are going overseas to fight, not just to train, as in Afghanistan in the late 1980s and 1990s, or to give moral and financial support, as in the case of Palestine. The numbers are still limited – the Indonesian foreign ministry estimated about 50 in December 2013 – but they could rise. Four factors explain why the conflict has attracted such attention. First, the enthusiasm for Syria is directly linked to predictions in Islamic eschatology that the final battle at the end of time will take place in Sham, the region sometimes called Greater Syria or the Levant, encompassing Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine and Israel. Indeed within some extremist circles, the Syrian conflict is known as the “one-way ticket jihad” because anyone goes there to fight will be able to stay and see Islam’s final victory. Second, thanks to a best-selling book, The Two-Arm Strategy, translated from Arabic into Indonesian, many extremists believe that the chaos and suffering produced by the Arab Spring can be exploited in a way that will lead to the restoration of an Islamic caliphate. Third, the atrocities of government forces against Sunni Muslims have been given wide play in the local media, including radical websites, playing into a campaign that was already underway before the conflict erupted to portray Shi’a Muslims, represented by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, as deviant and murderous. Finally, Syria is easier to reach for Indonesians, especially through Turkey, than any other major conflict feeding the global jihad. As a result, Indonesians from different radical streams are going or trying to go to Syria. The most important is Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), the once-powerful regional organization responsible for the 2002 Bali bombings that after 2007 disengaged from violence in Indonesia and was accused by other militants of abandoning jihad. From late 2012 to January 2014, JI’s humanitarian wing, Hilal Ahmar Society Indonesia (HASI), sent ten delegations to Syria, bringing in cash and medical assistance to the Islamist resistance in a way apparently designed to open channels for more direct participation in the fighting. Other salafi jihadis, including from various Darul Islam factions, are also trying to go, as are members of the non-violent salafi community. The Syrian conflict has also caused divisions among Indonesian jihadis, however. The tensions between two of the most hardline Islamist factions there, the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham (ISIS) and the al-Nusrah Front, have carried over to Indonesia, where each side has its supporters. Divisions have also emerged in Indonesia between those who see the conflict in Shi’a-Sunni terms and those who say these sectarian differences are being deliberately fanned by the West to mobilize opposition against the Assad government because of its strong opposition to Israel. These differences could weaken the overall impact of the conflict on Indonesian extremists and keep them divided. Nevertheless, the danger remains that fighters returning from Syria could infuse new energy into Indonesia’s weak and ineffectual jihadi movement

Prospectus, November 13, 2013

CONSTRUCTION CONTINUES FOR NEW ADDITION TO C-WING; Parkland honors veterans; Casual smoking bad for health; Public Safety on winter car care tips; Bad behavior isn\u27t an illness; Everyone spies on everyone else; The complex map of Syria politics; Cobra women\u27s soccer end season early; Skepticism a key tool in the digital agehttps://spark.parkland.edu/prospectus_2013/1021/thumbnail.jp

Prospectus, October 16, 2013

ADDITIONS TO CAMPUS NEARING COMPLETION; How to enhance your note taking techniques; Shutdown a bigger deal than anticipated; Who has the right to copyright their tattoos?; Men\u27s basketball returns to the hardwood; What\u27s new at the Parkland Art Gallery and theatrehttps://spark.parkland.edu/prospectus_2013/1017/thumbnail.jp

The Syrian conflict: Regional dimensions and implications

The Syrian conflict which started in March 2011 is well into its third year and its dimensions and implications are steadily moving beyond Syrian borders and the broader Middle East.Syria’s uprising has developed into a civil war between government forces and the opposition, motivated primarily by internal and external actors’ strategic and at times existential interests. This article examines the implications and dimensions of the Syrian crisis for the major actors in the region, including Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, the Gulf States, Israel and the Kurds.It argues that pitting a Shiite Iran-Iraq-Syria-Hezbollah axis against a Sunni Turkey-Gulf states axis is the most significant geo-political regional effect of the Syrian crisis. What is more devastating is not the division of the region along sectarian lines but the proxy war between the Shiite and Sunni factions

Changes in soil carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus due to land-use changes in Brazil

In this paper, soil carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus concentrations and stocks were investigated in agricultural and natural areas in 17 plot-level paired sites and in a regional survey encompassing more than 100 pasture soils In the paired sites, elemental soil concentrations and stocks were determined in native vegetation (forests and savannas), pastures and crop-livestock systems (CPSs). Nutrient stocks were calculated for the soil depth intervals 0-10, 0-30, and 0-60 cm for the paired sites and 0-10, and 0-30 cm for the pasture regional survey by sum stocks obtained in each sampling intervals (0-5, 5-10, 10-20, 20-30, 30-40, 40-60 cm). Overall, there were significant differences in soil element concentrations and ratios between different land uses, especially in the surface soil layers. Carbon and nitrogen contents were lower, while phosphorus contents were higher in the pasture and CPS soils than in native vegetation soils. Additionally, soil stoichiometry has changed with changes in land use. The soil C:N ratio was lower in the native vegetation than in the pasture and CPS soils, and the carbon and nitrogen to available phosphorus ratio (P-ME) decreased from the native vegetation to the pasture to the CPS soils. In the plot-level paired sites, the soil nitrogen stocks were lower in all depth intervals in pasture and in the CPS soils when compared with the native vegetation soils. On the other hand, the soil phosphorus stocks were higher in all depth intervals in agricultural soils when compared with the native vegetation soils. For the regional pasture survey, soil nitrogen and phosphorus stocks were lower in all soil intervals in pasture soils than in native vegetation soils. The nitrogen loss with cultivation observed here is in line with other studies and it seems to be a combination of decreasing organic matter inputs, in cases where crops replaced native forests, with an increase in soil organic matter decomposition that leads to a decrease in the long run. The main cause of the increase in soil phosphorus stocks in the CPS and pastures of the plot-level paired site seems to be linked to phosphorus fertilization by mineral and organics fertilizers. The findings of this paper illustrate that land-use changes that are currently common in Brazil alter soil concentrations, stocks and elemental ratios of carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus. These changes could have an impact on the subsequent vegetation, decreasing soil carbon and increasing nitrogen limitation but alleviating soil phosphorus deficiency121547654780British Embass