A concise, accessible overview of the maddeningly complex civil
conflict in Syria and its destabilizing impact on both Middle Eastern
politics and the broader international system.
The Syrian Crisis began with political protest yet evolved into an open
and brutal civil war. How did that come to pass? The Syrian Crisis:
What Everyone Needs to Know(R) helps to explain how and why, serving as
a comprehensive yet accessible guide to this hugely impactful yet
little-understood conflict. Drawing from nearly a decade of research and
analysis of the Syrian crisis, Charles Lister provides a wide-angle view
of an exceedingly complicated conflict that covers all of its different
moving parts. After opening with a history of modern Syria, he shifts to
the eruption of political protest and its evolution into an open and
brutal civil conflict. The civil war that resulted generated an
unprecedented expansion of terrorism, including the rise of ISIS; the
resurgence of Russia and Iran; an unparalleled humanitarian and refugee
crisis that upended domestic European politics; and the erosion of
long-held international norms like the ban on the use of chemical
weapons. The crisis in
Syria has transformed not just the Middle East, but much of the rest of
the world. This book helps to explain how and why.
