Articles

Rifaat al-Assad, who passed away a few days ago, on January 20, 2026, embodied one of the most revealing faces of Syria’s great transformation toward what may rightly be called a “State of Barbarism”: a state whose claimed legitimacy rested on repression, enforced communal ʿasabiyya , and the relentless pursuit of an “alliance of minorities.” This transformation effectively began with the Syrian-Egyptian union of 1958, a fleeting experiment that survived barely three years and a few months. At heart, Rifaat al-Assad was no more than one cog among others within that Syrian State of Barbarism which he defended without reservation, long before the Hama massacre of February 1982 and through the invasion of the countryside into the cities. This enterprise sought to impose archaic values upon urban populations, in retaliation against everything Damascus, Aleppo, Homs, Hama, and Latakia embodied as civilizational values.

« Totalitarian regimes are not content to dominate bodies; they seek to enslave minds. » – George Orwell Since the Iranian Revolution of 1979, the United States has imposed a large-scale economic sanctions regime on Tehran, which has become over the decades one of the most multidimensional pressure tools in American diplomacy. The first measures, instituted after the hostage-taking at the American embassy in Tehran in November 1979, froze Iranian assets in the United States via Executive Order 12170, immobilizing billions of dollars and blocking numerous financial operations. In the mid-1990s, Washington strengthened its arsenal: in March 1995, all American investment in the Iranian energy sector was prohibited; a measure followed in May by a total trade embargo covering almost all exchanges and technology transfers. The « Iran and Libya Sanctions Act » of August 1996 introduced extraterritorial sanctions, threatening foreign companies investing in Iranian hydrocarbons.

The latest article in our analysis of the evolution of the Euro-Mediterranean partnership of Barcelona (Euromed), then of the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM), draws an unvarnished assessment of the achievements and shortcomings that have marked, for Lebanon, the two phases 1995-2008 and 2008-2025 of this dual European strategic initiative. The Euro-Mediterranean Barcelona Process (Euromed), then the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM), have brought political, economic, and institutional achievements to Lebanon. However, these remain limited due to the chronic instability that has plagued the country since 1995, and more particularly since 2008.

In Syria, the question is no longer whether Bashar al-Assad’s regime could endure. That chapter is now closed. The real issue lies elsewhere. Can Syria, in the aftermath of the old regime’s collapse, rebuild a unified and viable state, or does the risk of disintegration and partition linger, merely taking on new forms? The fall of Assad’s regime at the end of 2024, followed by Ahmad al-Chareh’s rise to power during the transitional period, marked a major turning point in the Syrian landscape. While this upheaval did not, in itself, bring an end to the crisis, it profoundly reshaped its political contours. The debate has shifted from the fate of a regime to the very future of the state itself.

In our previous articles, we briefly explored the construction of the Grand Egyptian Museum and highlighted its major role as a research center. We also reviewed some of the extraordinary treasures it houses. But what of its economic, cultural, and national significance for Egypt? One of the Grand Egyptian Museum’s (GEM) primary roles is undoubtedly economic. It aims to attract tourists from across the globe, thereby playing a central part in the country’s economic dynamism. Situated near the Giza pyramids, the GEM is a cornerstone of Egypt’s new tourism strategy, with the goal of drawing up to 30 million visitors annually by 2030. This would place it among the world’s most visited cultural institutions. Such an influx is expected to revitalize ancillary sectors such as hospitality, catering, transport, and even small local businesses, creating thousands of direct and indirect jobs.

If basic decency prevents us from rejoicing even at the death of a monster, it does not prevent a certain sudden lightness from being felt, or even a fleeting sense of relief, upon hearing the news. Rifaat al-Assad is dead. Faced with the retrospective and retroactive feeling of powerlessness and desolation in the face of the worst atrocities in history, one consoles oneself as best one can. Assad takes with him a part of the darkest memory of the contemporary Levant: cities crushed for having screamed too loudly against barbarity, neighborhoods razed to serve as examples. One need only read the testimony of Michel Seurat, who paid for it with his life, to grasp with dread how Hama and Homs, in 1982, became laboratories for Assad’s almost clinical experimentation with death. Lebanon too, from Tripoli to its humiliated margins, paid the price for Rifaat’s inhumanity through his militias, the so-called “Red Knights.”