Authors: Itamar Rabinovich and Carmit Valensi
Leaving almost half a million dead and displacing an estimated 12 million people, the Syrian Civil War is a humanitarian catastrophe of unimaginable scale.
Syrian Requiem analyzes the causes and course of this bitter conflict — from its first spark in a peaceful Arab Spring protest to the tenuous victory of the Asad dictatorship — and traces how the fighting has reduced Syria to a crisis - ridden vassal state with little prospect of political reform, national reconciliation, or economic reconstruction.
Israel’s chief negotiator with Syria during the mid-1990s, Itamar Rabinovich brings unmatched expertise and insight to the politics of the Middle East.
Drawing on more than 200 specially conducted interviews with key players, Rabinovich and Carmit Valensi assess the roles of local, regional, and global interests in the war, says a review on the Princeton University Press website.
Local sectarian divisions established the fault lines of the initial conflict, ultimately leading to the rise of the brutal Daesh group. However, Syria rapidly became the stage for proxy warfare between contending regional powers, including Israel, Turkey, and Iran.
