Karam Shaar

Aug 26, 2024 | brookings.edu | Karam Shaar |Steven Heydemann

For the Biden administration, Syria’s ongoing conflict is a minor irritant that occasionally forces itself onto the agenda but for the most part can be ignored. Containing the conflict’s spill-over effects—whether in the form of refugees, narcotics smuggling, friction with Turkey over U.S. support for Kurdish actors and the presence of U.S. forces, or the humanitarian effects of economic collapse—defines the limits of the administration’s interest in Syria.

Aug 24, 2023 | atlanticcouncil.org | Karam Shaar |Holly Dagres

Middle East Politics & Diplomacy Syria No quick fixes for the Middle East’s captagon crisis Over a billion pills of captagon, amphetamine-based drugs, were seized in Arab countries in Asia between 2019–2022—enough to carpet six football fields with 28 million pills left over, per my calculations. The security, health, and geopolitical impacts of captagon’s proliferation have jolted many countries around the world into action. Consumer and transit countries in the region are enhancing their...