By Hussein Aboubakr Mansour | November 23, 2021

After ten years of Syrian carnage, the Middle East is starting to welcome Assad back into its ranks. News of Jordanian-Syrian collaboration and the recent visit by the UAE Foreign Minister to Damascus shows how far Assad came from his near-complete Arab isolation only a few years ago.  

The man who oversaw the destruction of one of the region's most formidable traditional Arab powers proved to be the only Arab leader who could survive the Arab Spring in one of its core states. This is no doubt a result of a mix of his political cunning, the ineptness of the Syrian opposition and Jihadism. Still, we would be remiss not to mention admit that American failure and Russian-Iranian success are central to this story. 

Read the full article here.

One week until Giving Tuesday!

In the rapidly changing world that is the Middle East, EMET works on many issues, but our major focus right now is the looming Iranian nuclear bomb. Iran has already tried to smuggle explosive material to Palestinian terror groups in the West Bank via UAVs launched from Syrian airports.

EMET meets with Congress members on both sides of the aisle every day. We are constantly writing and publishing and holding webinars with the best foreign policy experts and analysts each week.

Through our articles and webinars, our aim is to make sure that the Iran nuclear negotiations in Vienna will not be used as a smokescreen behind which Iran continues enriching uranium to the level necessary for a nuclear bomb. And we bring it all home, letting them know that this affects not just Israel, but the entire Middle East, and will eventually come back to haunt us here in the United States.
 
From now until Giving Tuesday, every donation will be matched dollar for dollar up to $100,000. We need your help! 

Students Supporting Israel (SSI) is a national student organization with the mission to be a clear and confident pro-Israel voice on campuses and to support students with grassroots activism.

A new SSI chapter at Duke was chartered on Wednesday, November 10th, 2021. Yet, on Monday, November 15, 2021, Duke’s Student Government President unexpectedly vetoed the recognition of Duke’s SSl chapter on campus. 

The reason for the veto: the chapter responded to a critical comment on social media made by another Duke student about the creation of the club, explaining why the student's comment was inaccurate and what is SSI's mission on campus, and called her to participate in SSI's upcoming event.

The student then complained that the chapter's response was harassing her and making her feel unsafe, and the Student Government President vetoed the existence of the group altogether, in a veto not used by a student government president for years.  

This incident is a perfect example of why Duke needs an SSI chapter. Please support Jewish Duke students by signing the Change.org petition.

*Note: Any donation you make on Change.org will go to Change.org, NOT Duke SSI or EMET.

Hannah served in senior foreign policy positions for both Democratic and Republican administrations, including as former Vice President Dick Cheney’s National Security Advisor from 2005-2009 and as Vice President Cheney’s Deputy National Security Advisor for the Middle East from 2001-2005. Previously, he also served as a senior advisor to Secretary of State Warren Christopher during the Bill Clinton administration, and as a senior member of Secretary of State James A. Baker’s Policy Planning Staff during the presidency of George H.W. Bush.

Outside of government, Hannah was Senior Counselor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Senior Fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and a lawyer practicing in the area of international dispute resolution. Hannah received his BA from Duke University, his JD from the Yale Law School, and did graduate work in international relations at Stanford University.