The Coming Fuck Up!

Indeed, Hezbollah’s adventurism against Israel is going to create ample problems for the Syrian regime.

 

Serious problems, in fact, especially if we take under consideration the likelihood that Hezbollah’s activities are being coordinated in collusion with regime members. This is exactly what I was afraid of. In lull times, the regime tends to fall back on old habits and old behavioral patterns. Someone in the regime, I am sure, must think it absolutely brilliant to continue to use Hezbollah to apply pressure on Israel in the hope of jumpstarting the long stagnant peace talks with Syria. This is a complete misreading of the situation, of course. But this is exactly the kind of misreading that this regime has been in the habit of doing for many years now. This tendency is bound to get more pronounced as the regime gets more and more desperate.  Continue reading “The Coming Fuck Up!”

Syria Faces Pressures to Democratize

Quoted by NPR

Syria is under intense international pressure. It was forced to withdraw its troops from Lebanon in April; Washington accuses it of supporting insurgents in Iraq. In the second story of a series on the prospects for democratic change in the Middle East, a look at whether the regime of Syrian President Bashar al Assad can survive. Continue reading “Syria Faces Pressures to Democratize”

Syria Squeezed: Are We Free Yet?

Dispatches by Elisabeth Eaves

… What is going on now is a lot of testing of “red lines,” as everyone in Damascus seems to call them. People are saying things and publishing things. But many of them, like al-Bounni and Ammar Abdulhamid, who heads the minority-rights Tharwa Project, are engaged in a harrowing pas de deux with the government. Al-Bounni and Abdulhamid are both barred from leaving the country. Intelligence officials have interrogated Abdulhamid three times since January. Al-Bounni has seen his siblings and friends thrown in jail for peaceful political speech. No one testing the limits knows when the next crackdown might come or what will provoke it. Continue reading “Syria Squeezed: Are We Free Yet?”