It will be extremely difficult to glue Syria back together as one country, the social fabric, the thick ties that bind it together have been dismantled, assad rule is really an area that corresponds more or less with a core identity area, yes there are many Sunnis and Christians living there but they see themselves as part of this core – the middle-class, upper-class Sunnis and Christians.

Fawaz Gerges

Fawaz A. Gerges is a Lebanese-American academic and author with expertise on the Middle East, U.S. foreign policy, international relations, Al Qaeda, and relations between the Islamic and Western worlds. He is currently a Professor of Middle East Politics and International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He also holds the Emirates Chair of the Contemporary Middle East at the LSE and was the inaugural Director of the LSE Middle East Centre. Gerges is a leading public intellectual and one of the world's top Middle East scholars. He has appeared on television and radio networks throughout the world, including CNN, ABC, CBS, NPR, the BBC and Al Jazeera. During the weeks leading up to the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, he was a regular guest on The Oprah Winfrey Show, PBS’s The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer and The Charlie Rose Show. On the ten-year anniversary of 9/11, Oxford University Press released Gerges' book, The Rise and Fall of Al Qaeda. Gerges' newest book, published by Pelgrave Macmillan is Obama and the Middle East.

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