This is the study that I have prepared during my first stint as a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution (July-December 2004). Though completed, the study was never published by Brookings, it was simply too whimsical to pass as a policy paper, and although I had permission to publish it elsewhere while acknowledging that it was prepared at Brookings, I got too caught up with the activities of the Tharwa Project and my the interrogations I faced upon my return to Syrian to follow up on this. Continue reading “Brother/Sister, Where Art Thou?”
Category: Syrian Politics
No Glasnost in Syria!
It is more like glasbust really – going for broke because you don’t know how to do anything else. Loosening your hold on power is simply out of the question, because you know the whole thing will come crashing down around you. It was meticulously designed to do just that. If not, there are those who will make sure the whole thing comes down out of sheer spite, and you know it, and you know them. Continue reading “No Glasnost in Syria!”
The Breaking Point!
And to bring things up to date, let’s point out that the Syrian regime is currently trying to acquire some new cards to play with and avoid reaching the Breaking Point: the chaos in Iraq and the Islamist specter, two things that Syrians simply don’t want to see in their country. Continue reading “The Breaking Point!”
Going Full Monte in Damascus!
No longer a lion cub, ours is now the real grown thing. The Baath Congress, we are told, has gone just as planned, as far as he is concerned, and he has just appointed members of his team to all key positions in the country’s military and security institutions – with General Dashing playing quite the important role I have to say, but then he always had.
The Ammar Abdulhamid Archive 