Please join the Middle East Institute (MEI) for a half-day conference focused on Syria one year into its historic transition.    One year ago, the Assad regime in Syria came to a sudden and dramatic end,

T he meandering roads through Latakia, Syria’s Alawite heartland, feel deceptively calm. In March they were the scene of massacres by pro-government forces in which more than 1,500 people were killed after an attempted insurrection by Alawite militants. The bloodshed jolted Syria awake to sectarian tensions that many had preferred to ignore.

American and Syrian service members were wounded in an attack Saturday during a joint patrol near Palmyra in Syria, according to Syria’s official state news agency.

The US special envoy for Syria, Tom Barrack, has stated that a "benevolent monarchy" has "worked best" in the Middle East. Speaking at a panel on Syria during the Doha Forum on Sunday, Barrack praised the Syrian administration of President Ahmad al-Sharaa’s "epic" and "heroic" achievements following the fall of Bashar al-Assad in December 2024.

In November Mr Netanyahu visited idf troops inside Syria. “This is a mission that can develop at any moment,” he said ominously. It was a warning to Mr Sharaa, who called for Israel to withdraw during his recent meeting with Donald Trump.

Iran’s decades-long strategic partnership with Syria has collapsed in the year since Bashar al-Assad’s fall, leaving Tehran struggling—and largely failing—to rebuild influence in a country that no longer wants it.

Critics say Syria’s fledgling government is hobbling military preparedness as it redoes the country’s forces from scratch.

Amid chaos and conflict in the Middle East, a new FRONTLINE documentary investigates high-stakes questions about the future of a country at the center of the region: Syria. The country shares borders with five key regional actors, Turkey, Iraq, Jordan ...