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Chaos Theory - Dispatch from Damascus

Annia Ciezadlo (New Republic) - If ever a country seemed ripe for regime change, Syria is it. It's run by a cabal of insiders, many from the same minority religious sect. In a region famed for joblessness, it has one of the highest rates of newly unemployed. Faced with relentless U.S. pressure - and with Iraq and Lebanon both undergoing seismic changes next door - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad should be running scared. But, here in Damascus, it's Assad's opponents who are frightened. They fear going to jail, they worry about being assassinated, they're afraid of disappearing and turning up dead. Most of all, though, they are afraid of ending up like Iraq. "The U.S. and the Europeans should do whatever they can to support Syria's civil society - it's small, but it exists," says Maan Abdul Salam, an opposition activist who heads a publishing house in Damascus. "If you are making pressure on the top, you need a foundation at the bottom so everything doesn't collapse. It will not be like the Iraq situation if they build something."
2005-07-01 00:00:00
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