Anchal Vohra is a Brussels-based columnist at Foreign Policy who writes about Europe, the Middle East, and South Asia. She has covered the Middle East for the Times of London and has been a TV correspondent for Al Jazeera English and Deutsche Welle. She was previously based in Beirut and Delhi and has reported on conflict and politics from over two dozen countries.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel talks to Federica Mogherini, the European Union's foreign-policy chief, in Munich on Feb. 7, 2015. (Christof Stache/AFP/Getty Images)
Damascus, SYRIA: A Syrian man arranges a display of national flags carrying a portrait of President Bashar al-Assad in a shop in Damascus, 26 May 2007. Assad stands tomorrow in a no-contest poll which will give him another seven years leading a regional heavyweight under immense international pressure. With parliament unanimously approving the candidature of the 41-year-old president for a second term, and with vocal opponents of the regime locked up, the referendum will inevitably anoint Assad as president until the year 2014. AFP PHOTO/HASSAN AMMAR (Photo credit should read HASSAN AMMAR/AFP/Getty Images)
