The Making of Armageddon!

The Jordanian authorities are still moving adamantly with their case against Hamas and the Syrian regime. The recent televised confessions of a Hamas suspect may seem like a page out of an old and worn out book, but it does betray a serious commitment to taking this matter to its logical conclusion: a confrontation with the Assad regime. When the Jordanian monarch warned against the rise of the Shia crescent, he was not mincing words or sound-bites. Rather, he was speaking as a true believer in the ultimate necessity of seeing this unholy crescent collapse and fall apart. He is a Hashemite after all. Continue reading →

The Witches of the Apocalypse!

Ibrahim Hmeidi has just published an interesting reportage dealing with the now celebrated phenomenon of the Kubaisi women, the orthodox sufi women movement founded by the Syrian scholar and teacher, Munira Kubaisi, AKA the Miss.

The movement which began in the early 60s in Damascus is now an international one with “centers” all over the world operating quietly, almost clandestinely sometimes, albeit, let me rush to say here, they are so far pretty apolitical and, as such, has no connection to any terror groups or activities. Continue reading “The Witches of the Apocalypse!” →

The Case for Regime Change in Syria (4)

A point was raised in the Comments Section below to the effect that for every corrupt Alawite in the regime there is at least five corrupt Sunnis. I don’t dispute the veracity of this statement. For indeed it comes as a natural reflection of two facts: 1) demographics, that is, there are simply much more Sunnis in the country than Alawites, and 2) the politics of appeasement and co-optation, that is, if we you want to keep the Sunnis elite on the quiet side and ignore the abnormal fact of Alawite dominance of the military and the decision-making process, you have to ensure that they are corrupt. Continue reading →

All About Viable Friends & Nonviable Regimes!

Back in Syria, my friend Joshua Landis and I inadvertently managed to develop a nice double act of sorts. He would defend the continued viability of the Syrian regime and the necessity for maintaining dialogue with it, and I would go on castigating the regime and attempting to convince people of its nonviability and the futility of all efforts at dialogue with it.

Continue reading “All About Viable Friends & Nonviable Regimes!” →