Fertile Crescent - What Is the Fertile Crescent. Definition: The "fertile crescent" refers to an ancient area of fertile soil and important rivers stretching in an arc from the Nile to the Tigris and Euphrates.
It covers Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, and Iraq. The Mediterranean lies on the outside edge of the arc. To the south of the arc is the Arabian Desert. On the east, the fertile crescent extends to the Persian Gulf. Ancient Syria. Ancient Syria provided a link to Turkey, and other cultures, from the land of Canaan.
Immediately north of Palestine, occupying the northern section of the Levant, is Lebanon. North of Lebanon, acting as a buffer between Turkey and Palestine, is Syria. Don't bet on Assad losing power...for now by Julien Barnes-Darcy. Another month and another delusionary speech by an Arab autocrat hanging on for power.
If recent history is anything to go by, surely Bashar al-Assad's end is now at hand? The Syrian president's unwillingness to concede any of the legitimate demands of protesters, his continued reference to terrorist infiltrators, and his stated willingness to maintain an "iron-fist" incurred broad condemnation and a widening consensus that his days are numbered. And, yet, to dismiss his speech and subsequent hard-line address to crowds gathered in Damascus yesterday, as the ravings of a madman and suggest that Assad is all out of ideas may also be mistaken. Is the president really facing a fight against the clock? Arab revolutions: How to set Syria free.