Robert Fisk on The Independent

Supporters of President Assad at a rally in Damascus yesterday

Robert Fisk: Assad faces his people's hatred – but as their anger grows, his excuses are still just the same

11 January 2012 12:00 AM

It was the Assad Speech of the Year. There was an international conspiracy against Syria. True. Arab states opposed to Syria were under "outside pressure". True, up to a point. Nobody could deny the seriousness of these plots. True. After all, the Syrian government itself registers 2,000 dead soldiers, while the UN estimates civilian dead at 5,000. And when Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan warned that the violence in Syria was "heading towards a sectarian, religious war", there were few supporters of President Assad who would disagree with him.

Dark souvenir: photograph taken by a German soldier, presumably to send back home

Robert Fisk: The shocking truth that killing can be so casual

07 January 2012 12:00 AM

More horror arrives in the mail.

Unsung: The 2006 film Indigènes highlighted the racism towards French African soldiers

Robert Fisk: France's shamefully forgotten allies

31 December 2011 12:00 AM

It took Indigènes to remind the French that they owed their liberation not only to De Gaulle's largely white Free French troops but also to 134,000 Algerian soldiers, 73,000 Moroccans, 26,000 Tunisians and 92,000 "others" from Sub-Saharan Africa.

Left to right: Former Egptian president Hosni Mubarak, Syrian president Bashar Assad, fallen Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and former Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali

Bonfire of the dictators

31 December 2011 12:00 AM

In the last part of our series, Robert Fisk ponders the fate of the despots who fought grimly against a revolutionary tide

Remembrance: Armenians annually commemorate the 1915 genocide

Robert Fisk: Turkey's long road to reconciliation

24 December 2011 12:00 AM

Just for a moment, put aside the current Franco-Turkish war over the 20th century's first Holocaust – of the Armenians – and remember that Nicolas Sarkozy's electoral venality (500,000 French-Armenian voters want to hear him tell the truth) and Turkish nationalism (which feeds on holocaust denial) make a bad cocktail.

Steven Spielberg's name was covered up in a Beirut cinema showing his Tintin film

Robert Fisk: The adventures of Tintin in Beirut

17 December 2011 12:00 AM

We are all haunted by war.

Alaa al-Aswany, who also works as a dentist

Alaa al-Aswany: 'Overthrowing Mubarak was too good to be true'

12 December 2011 12:00 AM

The Monday Interview: Alaa al-Aswany, giant of Egyptian life and letters, tells Robert Fisk how he joins the crowds in Tahrir Square, has written the revolution into his new novel – but resists making speeches

The 99 per cent: protesters in St Paul's as part of the Occupy London movement

Robert Fisk: Bankers are the dictators of the West

10 December 2011 12:00 AM

Writing from the very region that produces more clichés per square foot than any other "story" – the Middle East – I should perhaps pause before I say I have never read so much garbage, so much utter drivel, as I have about the world financial crisis.

Occupied: Beirut's heritage trail takes in Roman streets and Phoenician quarters

Robert Fisk: Phoenician footprints all over Beirut

03 December 2011 12:00 AM

I walked down a Phoenician street the other day, built under Persian rule.

18 February 2011: Tahrir Square protesters have switched their focus from demands for Hosni Mubarak’s downfall to anger at delays in the transition to a fully fledged democracy

Robert Fisk: Back to Tahrir Square

02 December 2011 12:00 AM

When they massed to call for the fall of Mubarak, Egypt's protesters were filled with hope. Now they are disillusioned with the army they trusted – but just as angry as ever

Egyptians protest against military rule in Tahrir Square yesterday

Robert Fisk: 'The real fight for democracy in Egypt has yet to begin'

01 December 2011 12:00 AM

A Cairo newspaper editor on why the elections will not prevent protesters from returning to Tahrir Square

Protesters storm the British embassy in Tehran yesterday

Robert Fisk: Sanctions are only a small part of the history that makes Iranians hate the UK

30 November 2011 12:00 AM

It's a weird irony that Iranians know the history of Anglo-Persian relations better than the Brits. When the newly installed Ministry of Islamic Guidance asked Harvey Morris, Reuters' man in post-revolutionary Iran, for a history of his news agency, he asked his London office to send him a biography of Baron von Reuter – and was appalled to discover the founder of the world's greatest news agency had built Persia's railways at an immense profit. "How can I show this to the ministry?" he shouted. "It turns out that the Baron was worse than the fucking Shah!" Of which, of course, the ministry was well aware.