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Mohammad Sayed Rassas 20 posts 0 comments

Mohammed Sayed Rassas, born in Latakia in 1956, holds a Bachelor's degree in English Language and Literature from the Faculty of Arts at the University of Aleppo. He has been an active journalist since 1998. His notable publications include: 1. After Moscow (1996), 2. The Collapse of Soviet Marxism (1997), 3. Knowledge and Politics in Islamic Thought (2010), and 4. The Muslim Brotherhood and Khomeini-Khamenei Iran (first edition 2013, second edition 2021). Additionally, he translated Erich Fromm’s work titled The Concept of Man in Marx (1998).

The sectarian issue in Syria: agricultural and commercial roots

It is impossible to interpret the sectarian conflicts that occurred in Western Europe without considering the economic factor. During the French Civil War (1562-1598) between Catholics and Protestants (Huguenots), the Huguenots formed the backbone of the emerging capitalist class, while the Catholics, who were the majority of the population, consisted mainly of peasants loyal to […]

1920 – 2025: The declining quality of politics in Syria

Syria, as a geographical-political entity that emerged within a political framework lasting four months in 1920, was the most prolific in generating political ideas from which political currents and parties in the region extending from Morocco to Iraq emerged. These ranged from Pan-Arab thought with its founders: Sati’ al-Husri, Michel Aflaq, and Kstantine Zureiq, to […]

The Middle East: Conflicts Over Regional Redefinition

Two hours after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu concluded his speech before the United Nations General Assembly in New York on September 27, Israeli jets killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in a raid on his headquarters in the southern suburbs of Beirut. The next day, from Jerusalem, Netanyahu described Nasrallah’s death as “reshaping the power […]

Turkey and Its Neighbors: Who Will Be in Charge of Syria?!

There was no friendly neighbor for the Republic of Mustafa Kemal when it was born in 1923. It seemed that the British delegation’s head at the Lausanne Conference and Foreign Minister Lord Curzon intended this when he allowed, as the legal midwife of the new state, that the newborn would not resemble the offspring of […]

Experiences of Political Transition Worldwide: Is There a Syrian Specificity?

There have been various models of political transitions around the world for decades, particularly in countries that have faced crises. These include: 1- Successful Transition through Agreement after Civil War: Lebanon between 1989-1990, Angola between 1991-2006, Mozambique in 1992, and Cambodia between 1992-1993. In the last three cases, the transition occurred through an agreement between […]

Selective Sympathy and Condemnation: How Different Groups Perceive Massacres in…

Massacre is defined here as “the intentional killing of a number of unarmed civilians, or the killing of a number of regular military/security forces, or militias, when they are not in a combat situation.” Massacres will be categorized according to the perpetrator(s). Massacres committed by the authority during the regimes of Hafez and Bashar al-Assad […]

Abdullah Öcalan’s Initiative and the Clash of the Four Major Nationalities

The concept of the nation-state has not succeeded in Atatürk’s Turkey, Pahlavi’s Iran, the Baathist republics in Syria and Iraq, nor has the Islamic Republic of Iran managed to solve the issue of nationalities while maintaining the dominance of Persian nationalism within its regime. From these five experiences, confrontational rifts emerged among the four major […]

The Syrian Interior After the Fall of Assad

The emergence of Hafez al-Assad’s dictatorship in 1970 was based on an international factor, namely the Soviet-American approval to remove a regime that rejected Resolution 242, which defined the contours and course of the Arab-Israeli conflict after the 1967 war. Additionally, there was a regional factor involving the new Egyptian president, Anwar Sadat, who proposed […]

Signals of Change in U.S. position on Iran

A senior European official informed a Syrian opposition group that the reason former U.S. President Barack Obama refrained from launching a major military strike against the Syrian regime following the chemical attack on Eastern Ghouta in August 2013 was due to Tehran’s threat to withdraw from negotiations over its nuclear program. In the summer of […]

Syria’s Psychological Trenches: A Nation’s Fragility Since…

There is arguably no parallel in the world to the Syrian Air Force pilot who targeted the civilian population of his own country with barrel bombs. This case is further complicated by the fact that these indiscriminate weapons, along with regular aerial bombardments, were heavily used in the eastern neighborhoods of Aleppo during the period […]

Post-Assad Syria: Alliances, projects…. and Islam

Most Syrians were surprised by the geopolitical significance of their country when the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime led to the demise of Iran’s regional axis, a fate not shared by Tehran’s forces in Gaza and Lebanon. Additionally, this collapse restored Russia’s status as a regional power after it gained global power status following its […]

How Bashar al-Assad Squandered His Father’s Legacy

When Riad al-Turk emerged from detention in September 2001 to November 2002, he recalled a statement made to him by Major General Adnan Badr Hassan, head of the Political Security Division, during his interrogation: “We are the ones who brought this boy, and we are the ones who rule behind him.” The author then reminded […]

Hafez al-Assad: An Analysis of His Rule and Political Legacy

In Muhammad Haidar’s book “The Baath and the Great Apostasy” (1998 edition, publisher unspecified), we can read the following statement about the Baath Party Congress’s decision to remove Defense Minister Hafez al-Assad and Chief of Staff Mustafa Tlass from their positions: “I believe that General Salah Jadid was fully aware that the Defense Minister and […]

The New Syria in the American Orbit

In the spring of 2015, Jaish al-Fatah, a military coalition between Jabhat al-Nusra and Harakat Ahrar al-Sham, took control of the entire Idlib province. In the summer of that year, they advanced south into the Al-Ghab Plain following the rapid retreat of the Syrian regime’s forces. Subsequent information confirmed that the objective of capturing Homs […]

Who is wary of Trump’s return?

With four years in the White House from 2017 to 2021, Donald Trump can arguably be seen as one of the most committed U.S. presidents to his campaign promises. During his campaign, he stated that the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran was “the worst deal ever signed in history,” and he fulfilled this promise by […]

Trump II Returns to the White House

In the recent U.S. presidential election, Kamala Harris became the fourth vice president to lose in a contest held at the end of their presidents’ terms. The previous instances include Richard Nixon in 1960, Hubert Humphrey in 1968, and Al Gore in 2000, with George H.W. Bush in 1988 being the only exception. These four […]

Understanding Iran’s ‘Surplus of Power’

Four months after Ruhollah Khomeini came to power on February 11, 1979, two delegations from the global organization of the Muslim Brotherhood arrived in Iran. According to oral accounts from Syrian opposition circles at the time, the group offered to pledge allegiance to Khomeini as the caliph of Muslims in exchange for his declaration that […]

Mysteries in Syrian Political History

There are many unresolved mysteries in Syrian political history. Even what has been revealed in Douglas Little’s documents or in Ambassador Hare’s correspondence warrants further research or should be compared with documents that can be found elsewhere. History possesses complexities and layers akin to mines, with the surface offering little indication of what lies beneath. […]

A Perspective on the World After October 7

The Ukrainian war in 2022 revealed a Sino-Russian alliance confronting a NATO-Japan-South Korea-Australia coalition. Ukraine was used as a battleground for this confrontation, and many still believe that Russian President Putin’s visit to Beijing three weeks before the war was meant to reassure the Chinese regarding their backing prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine […]

A Year After October 7: Looking Back

Wars escalate gradually, often with pre-war tensions remaining invisible. In the 1956 Suez War, for instance, the escalation spanned twenty months, beginning on February 28, 1955, with an Israeli raid on Gaza that resulted in the deaths of forty Egyptian soldiers. From that day forward, Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser contemplated turning eastward, away from […]