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Source: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/05/13/130513fa_fact_filkins?currentPage=all
The Debate over Syria
(New Yorker) Dexter Filkins - On April 25, Syrian medical technician Majid Daraya was sitting at home in the city of Daraya, near Damascus, when he heard an explosion. On the southern horizon he saw a blue haze. Seconds later came another blast and another blue haze. Within a few minutes, his eyes began to burn, and he felt sick to his stomach. He walked to the local hospital where he worked as an anesthesia specialist. When he arrived, dozens of people were streaming in, choking, vomiting, crying, saliva bubbling out of their mouths. The victims were suffering from chemical poisoning, but none died. On the way home, Majid saw birds, goats, chickens, and stray dogs writhing on the ground. Others were dead. Joseph Holliday, a former Army intelligence officer who has studied the conflict for the Institute for the Study of War, in Washington, said, "Assad has been extremely calculating with the use of force, increasing the levels of violence gradually, so as not to set off alarm bells....First it was artillery. Then it was bombing. Then it was Scuds. A year ago, he wasn't killing a hundred people a day. He's introducing chemical weapons gradually, so we get used to them." "Assad appears to be testing the tactical value of his chemical arsenal," said Gary Samore, who until February was President Obama's chief adviser on weapons of mass destruction. "He's testing the political limits, too." Joshua Landis, a professor of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Oklahoma, doubts that the Alawites will be able to build a state on the Mediterranean coast where they predominate, after Damascus falls to a newly empowered Sunni majority. "Once the Sunnis take power, they are going to want the coast, and right now the Alawites have it. The elegant solution, for them, is ethnic cleansing....The Sunnis will pick one little town, maybe two, and kill everyone. The rest of the Alawites will not stick around and wait to see what happens. They will all go to Lebanon."