2011), Destroying a Nation: The Civil War in Syria (2017), Granaten en minaretten: Een diplomaat op zoek naar vrede in de Arabische en islamitische wereld (2020) (a reflection on his experiences as a diplomat in search of peace in the Arab and Islamic world), and De vrede die niet kwam (1998). He has published a multitude of books on the Middle East, including The Struggle for Power in Syria: Politics and Society under Asad and the Ba’th Party (4th ed. Bush withheld support from Iraqis because he baulked at the prospect of regime change the same.Dr Nikolaos van Dam is a former Dutch diplomat who, between 19, served as the ambassador of the Netherlands to Iraq, Egypt, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Germany and Indonesia, and as the Dutch Special Envoy for Syria between 20.Īs a junior diplomat he served in Lebanon, Jordan, the Palestinian Occupied Territories and Libya. The comparison is apt, but it undermines Van Dam's assumption. Bush's in Iraq in 1991 when, after encouraging the country's Shias and Kurds to rise up, he abandoned them to Saddam Hussein's ruthless repression. He compares current Western policy in Syria to George H. By questioning Assad's legitimacy, he argues, the West foreclosed the possibility of a negotiated settlement, and by calling on Assad to step down, it engendered false hope and unreasonable expectations. Van Dam condemns the regime for its brutal repression but blames the West for prolonging the bloodshed. The wisdom Van Dam imparts from his diplomatic vantage point, however, is of less certain value. The first chapter of Destroying a Nation covers much of the same territory with characteristic rigour and precision. Van Dam, who served as the Netherlands' Special Envoy for Syria between 20, is the author of the highly regarded The Struggle for Power in Syria (1979), a magisterial study of the genesis, evolution and consolidation of the Assad regime. The Dutch scholar and diplomat Nikolaos van Dam's Destroying a Nation: The civil war in Syria enlists history to explain the country's present crisis.

Two recent books help us to take stock of this situation. The possibility of a just outcome is now more remote than ever. In the four years in between, the Syrian revolution has seen its problems multiply, friends dwindle and hopes recede. In 2013 the same besieged enclave was the site of a horrific massacre when, in defiance of Barack Obama's red line, Bashar al-Assad's regime used chemical weapons to kill over 1,400 of its inhabitants. A few weeks ago it was photos of the grotesquely emaciated Sahar Dofdaa, a baby who died of malnutrition in the Damascus suburb of Eastern Ghouta.

18.99 (US $24.99).Įvery once in a while, Syria's forgotten tragedy yields an image that disturbs the calm of a world otherwise inured to the country's horrors.

Destroying a Nation by Nikolaos van Dam