Open Dialogue Research Journal
This incisive article by CRG Research Associate Robert J. Burrowes was first published in July 2025. On about 20 September 2001, just ten days after the destruction of the World Trade Centre buildings on 9/11, recently retired U.S. Army General Wesley Clark was visiting the Pentagon for meetings with Secretary Rumsfeld and […]
For decades, the idea of Israeli forces advancing toward Damascus belonged mainly to the history books. Syria and Israel remained formally at war, but after 1974 their confrontation was largely contained. Israel bombed Iranian and Hezbollah targets inside Syria, sometimes very close to Damascus, yet occupying Syrian territory beyond the […]
[This article was originally published in May 2023.] The wars the United States waged and fueled in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, and Pakistan following September 11, 2001 caused at least 4.5 million deaths, according to a report by Brown University. Nearly a million of the people who lost their lives […]
The formal legal trigger for Ankara’s demarche is an ongoing investigation into the “Global Sumud” humanitarian flotilla, which attempted to break the maritime blockade of the Gaza Strip. The interception of these vessels by the Israeli Navy in international waters, along with the detention of activists, triggered a deep historical […]
The emerging Saudi-Pakistani-Turkish defense framework represents one of the most significant attempts in recent years to construct an autonomous security architecture linking the Middle East with South Asia. It is still premature to describe it as an “Islamic NATO,” because it lacks NATO’s permanent command structure, standardized operational doctrine and […]
Eight bombs fell on the runways and hangars of the Abu al-Duhur air base in northern Syria early Tuesday morning, and within hours the incident had done something more consequential than damage a single airstrip: it pulled three of Washington’s closest Middle East partners – Israel, Turkey, and Syria’s new […]
As of August 2026, Syria’s government under President Ahmed Al-Sharaa appears considerably stronger than it did after Bashar al-Assad’s fall in December 2024. Damascus controls most major cities, has recovered important oil and gas fields, secured sanctions relief, joined the international coalition against “Islamic State” and established working relationships with […]
Syria’s war has changed shape, but it has not disappeared. The country is no longer living through the same battlefield map that defined the Assad years, yet the forces that once tore it apart are still active beneath the surface: armed fragmentation, sectarian fear, economic despair, foreign rivalry, and the […]
They’re not the same thing, unlike what many might think, and the difference is important. Reports indicate that Russia has withdrawn from three bases in Northeastern Mali, which the local Tuareg call Azawad, after the offensive by “Azawad Liberation Front” (FLA) Tuareg separatists and al-Qaeda-affiliated “Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin” (JNIM) radical […]
If it wasn’t for the Africa Corps’ valiant defense of their positions throughout the country, Mali probably would have already fallen, but it now has a fighting chance to survive and foil this Western power play. Russia’s Africa Corps played an indispensable role in helping Mali thwart last weekend’s terrorist […]
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