by Ghassan Karam
The adage “Be careful of what you wish for, it might come true” highlights the need to be very cautious and deliberate in choosing an end as well as a means. For who wants to attain a cherished goal if that implies adopting wrong and illiberal policies that are antithesis of the [...]

Could the country’s economic decline, spurred on by the protests, pose a graver challenge to al-Assad than the uprising?

by Ghassan Karam
The idea of a minimum wage has a great appeal all over the world. Although the notion was first introduced by New Zealand in 1894 practically all countries in the world have adopted a minimum wage standard.

Syria’s dictator Bashar al Assad is following the same path of Libya’s leader Muammar Qaddafi whose defiant and wild-eyed speeches nearly a year ago presaged the Libyan civil war which led to his death

by Ghassan Karam
The Maronite Patriarch, Al Rai, has demonstrated one more time why is it that men of the cloth should not deal with politics but should confine themselves to their field of expertise , religious guidance

Should Iran’s rulers ever make good their threats to block the Straits of Hormuz, they could almost certainly achieve their aim within hours, but they could emerge the primary losers.

Which is scarier: a government that hunts down and kills dozens in cold blood, or a government that hunts down and kills dozens by accident?

What conflict situations are most at risk of deteriorating further in 2012? Foreign Policy came up with 10 crisis areas that warrant particular concern

Two car bombs rocked the Syrian capital Damascus on Friday; the al-Assad regime immediately rushed to announce that Al Qaeda was responsible for this terrorist operation,

One morning in mid-August, seven months into the Arab Spring protests and government crackdowns in which thousands have been killed, something strange happened on Syria’s Internet.

The Syrian regime wants to crush any expression of dissent in its fragile neighbor. President Bashar al-Assad’s allies in Beirut are only too happy to oblige.

The rise of the Islamists, in the form of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) followed by the ultra-conservative Al Nour coalition, has shocked the secular-liberal political formations.

By Ghassan Karam

Minimum wages have always been very controversial and chances are that they will always be so. The idea is so contentious since it deals with one of the most sensitive ideas of a market economy,

The government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad signed an Arab League peace initiative this week, admitting outside observers to his country even as his forces killed as many as 200 people in two of the deadliest days

by Ghassan Karam
There is a time for everything. A time to live and a time to die but there is never a time to be sectarian “

It is the Arab Earthquake. Not “spring,” not “wave of reform,” not even “awakening” can describe the systemic upheaval that has engulfed Syria. Let us call an earthquake an earthquake.

What does a worsening of the Syria conflict mean for the Shia militant group Hezbollah, as it struggles to maintain its fragile coalition government in Lebanon and contain sectarian tensions there?

By Ghassan Karam
It can be argued that dictatorship is not that different than outright occupation by a foreign military. Actually it has been suggested by many

Lewis, 22, is a member of Telecomix, an unconventional Western computer club that helps activists across the Middle East evade regime crackdowns.

CBS News correspondent Clarissa Ward went undercover in Syria to get a rare look at the revolution. She reports on the growing legions of former soldiers who are joining the rebel movement.

Beirut , Lebanon – With reports of the CIA shutting down in Beirut, Al Jazeera explores the extent of intelligence infiltration in Lebanon.

by Ghassan Karam
And so Lebanon dodges another bullet. What was billed, by all sides, as being potentially an explosive event ended up being a whimper just like the Elliot had predicted in “The Hollow Men” :

Let us set aside, even if just for a moment, the feelings of discontent, rage and disdain, and all the other emotions that have run high as a result of the Syrian regime’s bloody practices and stances

Nearly nine months into the Syrian uprising, many protesters are pinning their hopes on an increasingly bold group of army defectors to give their revolution a fighting chance against President Assad’s forces.

The UN Human Rights Council has released its report on abuses in Syria, and it reads like a catalog of misery and disregard for human life:

By Ghassan Karam
Old habits die hard, actually at times they never die. This is a good thing if the habit in question is that of integrity, high ethical standards, intellectual curiosity and creative thinking. But it is a bad when the characteristic in question is that of being addicted to superficiality, megalomania and a squeaky [...]

Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who agreed Wednesday to step down after a ferocious uprising against him, was perhaps the slipperiest leader in the Middle East.

“What a joke,” I heard someone snort at a nearby table. “As if Lebanon were truly independent…”

The chilling spectacle of Muammar Gaddafi’s brutal end last month and the capture of his son Saif al-Islam this week, far from deterring Bashar al-Assad

The Syrians have suffered a litany of horrors. Their resistance to Assad’s regime will stand as an exemplar of human courage

by Ghassan Karam
Often reality is difficult to accept and especially for the ideologues whose understanding of development and their advice is rarely, if ever, to be taken seriously.

Egypt’s revolutionaries can point to the moment their revolution began to go astray: It was the day of their greatest victory.. the day when the army stepped in to take Mubarak’s place.

Iraq’s refusal to back Arab measures against Syria, which has since March been trying to crush a popular uprising, has confessional overtones and may boost sectarian division here, analysts say.

Dr. Mahmoud Jame’, author of the book “I Knew Sadat”has recently raised an interesting issue when he said that ( President Anwar) Sadat was briefed on the secret that the Golan Heights were actually sold to Israel ahead of the 1967 for US$100 million.

By Robert Fisk
The suspension is a serious challenge to President Bashar al-Assad. He and his father Hafez promoted Syria as the “Mother of the Arab Nation” – now the “Arab Nation” wants to humiliate it.

By Ghassan Karam
The reaction of the Syrian regime to the recently announced suspension of the Syrian membership by the Arab League reminds me of the story about the proud mother during a military parade

Are Lebanese authorities doing more than knocking on the doors of long since vacated last known addresses of the four defendants, in the case against the men suspected of killing former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri?