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!” →

“Necessary” Tatics!

If the President is to emerge as the Man of the Hour during the upcoming Baath conference, at least in the eyes of other members of the regime as well as his own inner circle, he has no choice to act tough at this stage. It is primarily in this light indeed that we should see the current crackdown against the Islamists, the recent arrest of the Atassi Forum Board Members and of human rights activist Muhammad Raadoun, and the recent announcement that Syria has ceased any security cooperation with the US. Continue reading →

A Heretical Closure!

Many of laborers involved in the process of renovating our building are actually denaturalized Kurds, that is, descendants of Kurdish citizens that have been stripped away of their Syrian citizenship as a result of the 1962 census and the manipulations that took place at that time. In other words, they belong to the very group of people whose basic rights my team and I at the Tharwa Projectare supposed to be busy defending, and are actually doing so, to the best of our restricted abilities. Continue reading “A Heretical Closure!” →

Fig Leaf Burning!

Why does the President still insist on reforming the Baath Party? A friend of mine asked me not too long ago. He does not seem to be too convinced of the Party ideology, he does seem to be quite aware of the endemic corruption among the rank-and-file on all levels, and he must surely be quite aware of anathematic the very term Baath is to American and international ears at this stage. So, why does he insist on reforming the Baath? Continue reading “Fig Leaf Burning!” →