Talk:Syrian National Congress/Archive 1

Archive 1

Pipes as source

On 11 December 2010 editor Supreme Deliciousness tagged the sole source at the time, namely Pipes, Daniel (1992). Greater Syria: The History of an Ambition. Oxford University Press US. ISBN 0195060229, 9780195060225. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help), as "potentially unreliable" using the Unreliable sources template. While the author Daniel Pipes has been reviled by a number of political columnists for his opinions, I found no evidence or suggestion that he fabricated information. Like all historians and political commentators he is selective of his facts, but again I found no sources that said he ignored facts, although there were some that indicated that he ignored some people's opinions. In reviewing the book, Greater Syria: The History of an Ambition, I found no reasons to reject its factual basis, the author's political opinions notwithstanding. Oxford University Press is a reliable publisher. Frank Clements, who has no particular axe to grind, found the book to be a reliable source in his selective bibliography for Historical dictionary of Arab and Islamic organizations page 281. As such, I have removed the tag. It would, nonetheless, be valuable to provide additional citations to additional materials. --Bejnar (talk) 19:40, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

See, for example, the brief review in Foreign Affairs where John C. Campbell calls it "a superior book, tracing the impact of the idea on the region's tortured history since World War I, from the ambitions and machinations of Faisal and Abdullah to those of Hafez al-Assad." although disagreeing with Pipes's conclusions.--Bejnar (talk) 19:55, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Organizing the congress

One source simply says "In May 1919, elections were held for the Syrian National Congress." But the process of organizing elections and constituting a new body took place in just six months in a place that had been under autocratic rule for centuries, had just experienced violent revolution, and had few existing institutions that could support the endeavor. The summary of that process certainly deserves a paragraph in this article. --Bejnar (talk) 19:40, 27 June 2011 (UTC)