Arab-spring

ces soulèvements « ont traduit un vrai ancrage parmi les populations arabes de valeurs liées aux droits de l'Homme, un vrai enthousiasme pour des valeurs universelles. Ce n'était pas le cas il y a seulement dix ans 

the Syrian army is a good place to seek out independents—most of the officer class is Sunni, rather than Alawite like Assad and his cabal. One oppositionist in Deraa told us that the army is popularly seen as more a cat's-paw of the regime rather than an ideological extension of it:The army has no clue what is going on. They think we are armed people, and they are working under the guidance of shabbiha and the security forces. We have started to notice and hear of splits, and the longer we drag this out, the more apparent it becomes, because you can't be at war with Salafists in every city in your country and not have contact with your family or the outside world for several months. There will be a point that someone [from the army] will say, "That is it, enough! This has to stop."

the head of the Deraa Baath Party has been arrested and tortured.

Islamists can neither be excluded from, nor can they dominate, the political scene in Syria

t doesn't mean that Syrian Islamists pose no threat to the opposition or to whatever government might emerge if and when Assad is ousted. But it demonstrates their political weakness relative to their brethren in Egypt and Tunisia. Assurances from non-Islamists as to the makeup of the opposition might be mistaken for special pleading; but clear victories in their wrangles for representative power are more definitive

Let Iran, Russia, and Hezbollah make the mistake of shirked solidarity