Damascus

Peace isn’t exactly blossoming like rosebuds in the Middle East. The region is still host to a devastating civil war in Yemen, a humanitarian crisis in Syria, sporadic terrorist attacks in Iraq and an endless tit-for-tat between the US and Iranian-backed militias in Iraq and Syria. Indeed, just last night, President Biden authorized several airstrikes against three militia locations in retaliation for a drone attack on an American base in Syria that killed one contractor and injured six others. But for an area of the world so often regarded as hopeless, the Middle East is suddenly looking like an epicenter of diplomacy.

Northwest Syria is one of the most wretched places on earth. The Syrian province of Idlib, straddling the border with Turkey, is a haven for the internally displaced and is in all practicality a state within a state. Throughout Syria’s twelve-year-long civil (and proxy) war, Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad has treated the area as a dumping ground for fighters who refuse to lay down their arms and civilians who want nothing to do with Assad family control. Idlib, representing 4 percent of Syria’s total land, is now host to 25 percent of its entire population. And that was before the earthquake hit. If Syria’s northwest was a gateway to misery before the tremors, it’s now a hellscape. Entire families have been wiped out. Buildings have been reduced to rubble.