REGIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL FACTORS THAT PROLONG THE SYRIAN CRISIS

Abstract

    In Regional and International factors that Prolong the Syrian Crisis, Eduardo W. Aboultaif provides an analytical survey of the various regional and international players who are directly or indirectly involved in the Syrian crisis. Aboultaif elucidates the subtle differences between political and economic concerns and explains, for example, how states often are willing to ignore their immediate economic interest when faced with political factors that are seen as national security threats. Aboultaif further describes the inter-consecutiveness of events in Syria and events in Russia, China and Iran, thereby revealing the logic underlying support to the Asad regime. Perhaps most important, and up to the time in which Aboultaif completed this article, the unwillingness of Arab states, and to a lesser extent Turkey, to act directly in the region without American support has served to define the nature of the regional conflict and, explains, to a large extent, the continuity of the crisis.