Commentaries, Analysis, And Editorials -- June 12, 2020

Charles Lister, Politico: Is Assad About to Fall?

While the world wasn’t watching, Syria has edged toward collapse, and the dictator is in his weakest position ever. The U.S. now has a narrow chance to prevent a catastrophe.

“We promised to keep things peaceful … but if you want bullets, you shall have them.”

That was the wording of a message issued to Bashar Assad by the Druze community in Syria’s southern Suwayda province on Tuesday after three days of intensifying protests. Since then, its opposition to the Assad regime has only heated up, despite a pro-regime counterprotest on Wednesday, in which local state employees were threatened by secret police should they not participate. Demonstrators took to the streets against Assad again on Wednesday and Thursday, some bearing flags of the Syrian revolution.

Read more ....

Commentaries, Analysis, And Editorials -- June 12, 2020

Competition in Iraq -- Ben Connable and James Dobbins, RAND

Intel: China may pose greater challenge to US hegemony in Mideast than Russia -- Al-Monitor

Protests, pandemic, US-China tensions from national security law: is the party over for Hong Kong? -- Cannix Yau , Kanis Leung and Denise Tsang, SCMP

The United States, China and 'The Geography of the Peace' -- Francis P. Sempa, RCD

China’s Arctic strategy in Iceland and Greenland -- Ties Dams, Louise van Schaik & Adája Stoetman, Clingendael

India Is Hurtling Into a Coronavirus Crisis -- Foreign Policy

The Shape of Asia’s New Cold War -- Yoon Young-kwan, Project syndicate

Trump’s Sudden and Dangerous Troop Withdrawal From Germany -- Philip H. Gordon, Council on Foreign Relations

Why does coronavirus kill fewer people in East Asia? -- Martin Fritz, DW

The pandemic is making the opioid crisis worse -- Alexander Caudarella, National Post

Black Lives Matter protests: where next? -- AFP

Scientists around the world are already fighting the next pandemic -- The conversation