Syria’s Kurds are mistaken if they imagine Assad will let them flourish as equal partners in a federalized post-war settlement, argues James Snell.

Syrian Kurds can be considered among the biggest beneficiaries of the conditions that have ensued since the outbreak of the Syrian revolution. They have seized some of the rights which they have been denied for decades. Additionally, Kurdish forces have managed to control all the areas where Kurds are a relative majority, and to properly organize their public affairs. It is becoming increasingly difficult for…

States arise out of war, and are also eliminated by war. War is not just armed conflict but is also a conflict of discourses, of intellectual modes, and of desires. The state may be a nation state or it may be something else – as was the case for the Syrian state on the day segments of the Syrian population rose up and revolted against…