Fareed Zakaria GPS: Landis On Syria Solution

Joshua Landis '79 appears on CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS to discuss solutions for the ongoing crisis in Syria. He illustrates a competition between regional groups for control of the whole country, ultimately posing that these regions are the key to peace efforts.

“What could be an outcome,” he proposes, is a partition of Syria “leaving [President Bashir al] Asad in Southern Syria. The north is the problem.” He says American, Turkish, and NATO forces can best address radical violence in northern Syria once that region is made separate. 

Landis, director of the Center for Middle East Studies and associate professor at the University of Oklahoma’s College of International Studies, is one of the nation’s leading experts on Syria. He frequently advises American officials on issues relating to Syria and the Middle East and writes Syria Comment, a widely-read daily newsletter on Syrian politics.

At Swarthmore, Landis majored in European history and French literature. He later earned an M.A. from Harvard University and a Ph.D. from Princeton University.