*Editor's Note – 3/10/25: This article has been updated to replace the name of an interviewee with a pseudonym due to safety concerns related to their status in Belarus. The change was made in response...

It seems, miraculously, that the Syria situation has calmed down — from the American perspective, at least. Bashar al-Assad, the East Mediterranean nation’s dictator, recently agreed to a plan, proposed by Russia, to hand over his nation’s chemical weapon stockpiles to the United Nations for destruction. Late last week, the Obama administration agreed to the plan. This comes in the wake of fierce debates over possible U.S. intervention in Syria, proposed by the Obama administration as a response to the revelation that Assad’s regime has extensively used chemical weapons on rebels in its two-year civil war.