By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 17 March 2025
The Alawi Massacres in Syria: A Blip or a Rubicon?
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Tag Archives: Hama massacre
Bashar al-Assad Falls
Islamism in Syria
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on October 23, 2020
A chapter about Islamism in Syria I wrote for the American Foreign Policy Council’s (AFPC) ‘World Almanac of Islamism’ was published today. Do check it out, and the broader site, which is a great, accessible resource. The format of the website necessitated that the chapter as I submitted it was edited, condensed, and split up to fill out the various categories. In case it is of any interest, the original version of the chapter is reproduced below.
The Horrors in Assad’s Prisons Are Beyond the Cruelty of the Islamic State
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 12 July 2017
In Syria, the West has been keen not to repeat the mistakes of Iraq—defined as being drawn into an open-ended ‘war of choice’ in the Middle East. This insight led to watching with folded arms as the regime of Bashar al-Assad massacred peaceful protesters and depopulated ancient cities with fighter jets and poison gas, an exodus that spread instability into Europe and allowed menacing strategic adversaries like Iran and Russia to gain footholds that Western policy had heretofore denied them. Continue reading
Hama: The Forgotten Front
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on April 12, 2014
Aftermath of the Hama massacre, 1982
Hama. The very word in the Syrian lexicon denotes violence and the immovability of the House of Assad. There, in 1982, Hafez al-Assad secured the title deeds to his dynasty. Hafez had intruded into the Lebanon during its time of sorrow and the “blowback”—which it turns out is not only for Americans—had sparked an uprising inside Syria led by the Muslim Brotherhood. Continue reading
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