My NYT op-ed, "Don't Push Syria Away," was criticised by Asad Abu Khalil, the Angry Arab, and Rime Allaf of Chatham House, the old Royal Institute for Foreign Affairs, in London. Michael Young of the Daily Star also critiqued my article. I will answer Asad first, because his remarks are just barking. Rime, however, has a substantive dispute with my argument, which will help me to explain my argument in more depth. Michael Young, I answer last.



The Angry Arab, Asad Abu Khalil, honors me with some of his exquisite invective.

Here is Abu Khalil:







Saturday, September 17, 2005

Here JOSHUA LANDIS pontificates about Syrian-US relations. But notice that here he wants to "inform" you that authoritarianism is NOT merely a governmental structure but that it "extends into the deepest corners of Syrian life, into families, classrooms and mosques." It must be in their genes, I guess. And notice this old trick which we knew from colonial times: when you want to make a racist point about the natives, or a generalization about "all of them" as this one makes, always cite the "authority" of a native you know. Or here he cites: "most Syrians." Imagine if I generalize about "most Americans" without having to cite polls.

"[This report] describes [the need] to shift from traditional, spoon-fed and authoritarian education, which presupposes the scarcity of information, to the concept of participatory, active and democratic education that is based on the abundance, access to and ownership of information.... Teaching methods, class interaction and evaluations remain authoritarian and based on memorization, which distorts the construction of the free and critical mind and autonomous student personality... [The teacher's role], especially in the basic education level, is still that of a dominant instructor.... The structure and orientation of the curriculum is still centrally mandated."

"it will be news to all Syrians to hear Josh's shocking explanation for this: "because authoritarian culture extends into the deepest corners of Syrian life, into families, classrooms and mosques." What a ridiculous, insulting, and completely wrong statement on its own."

Islamic education in Syrian schools is traditional, rigid, and Sunni. The Ministry of Education makes no attempt to inculcate notions of tolerance or respect for religious traditions other than Sunni Islam. Christianity is the one exception to this rule. Indeed, all religious groups other than Christians are seen to be enemies of Islam, who must be converted or fought against. The Syrian government teaches school children that over half of the world’s six billion inhabitants will go to hell and must be actively fought by Muslims.

I will limit my comments to the article's most ridiculous and insulting assertions. Josh is under the impression that the regime's "most hard-bitten enemies" do not want to see it collapse. That will be news to them, and it will be news to all Syrians to hear Josh's shocking explanation for this: "because authoritarian culture extends into the deepest corners of Syrian life, into families, classrooms and mosques." What a ridiculous, insulting, and completely wrong statement on its own, let alone when used to explain why enemies of the regime want it to stay! Do Syrians, enemies of the regime included, have an inherently authoritarian culture (and consequently don't want to see the regime collapse)?



He continues with another fantastic proposition: "Damascus's small liberal opposition groups readily confess that they are not prepared to govern." That will be news to them, as it is to me. I don't recall critics of the regime claiming they had no other alternatives; on the contrary, numerous members of the opposition have readily discussed their plans for the new phase that would come when "reform" of some sort happens. But Josh thinks that "like most Syrians, they fear the deep religious animosities and ethnic hatreds that could so easily tear the country apart if the government falls." In other words, this regime is keeping the peace amongst a savage population that can't wait to attack people of other ethnicities or religious denominations? What an insult. And what a complete disregard for the thousands of years of tolerance in Syria, where people didn't need to wait for the Baathist regime to live peacefully.

Riad al-Turk: “The opposition today is suffering from an intellectual crisis. It is intellectually backwards and incapable of communicating with the populace. If you examined the membership of the opposition parties you’d discover that the younger members are in their mid-40s. They are not attracting the youth. These parties are totally detached from the younger generations… Anyone who tells you that the opposition is effective or doing a good job is lying to you.”



Joe Pace: I mentioned Farid Ghadry's claim that in six months, the foreign based opposition would be capable of governing the country as a replacement for the current regime. He responds:



Riad al-Turk: “That is nonsense. We have been working for more than 30 years and we are still being imprisoned. Work in Syria is still extremely difficult and there is no mobilized, politicized street. This is the difficult task ahead of us.”

Joe Pace: What’s your reading on why the opposition is so weak and ineffective?



Hajj Salih: In my mind, there are three reasons. The first is the intense oppression that has continued from the 1970s until today, and in the last three months there has been a heightened degree of oppression. They arrested and killed thousands of people from the opposition beginning in the 1970s.



The second problem is the nature of Syrian society. The Syrians today fear each other more than they fear from the authorities. Syria is a society that features a plurality of religions and ethnicities, including larger groups like Muslims, Christians, and Druze and smaller groups like the Armenians and Circassians. In the past thirty years there has developed a crisis of trust between them. The Arabs fear the Kurds and the Kurds don’t trust the Arabs. The Christians are afraid of the Muslims and the Muslims are apathetic or sometimes antagonistic toward the Kurds. The secularists are afraid of the Islamists and the Islamists hate the secularists. Many people fear the other more than they fear the regime. On the contrary, the regime under these circumstances becomes the solution in the sense that it is the only thing that prevents the eruption of ethnic conflict.



There have always been Kurds, Alawis, and Sunnis and in our history, but there has never been such a crisis of trust as has developed in the last thirty years. The responsibility lies with the regime and the Muslim Brotherhood. The regime was responsible because it reified sectarianism through its nepotism. It dispensed all the most important jobs to the Alawis. The Muslim Brotherhood was also responsible: in 1979 they killed some 80 officers in the Defense School of Aleppo, almost all of whom were Alawi. The simple fact that someone was Alawi warranted his targeting among the Brotherhood and this enhanced the regime’s status in the eyes of minorities. Alawis, Christians, and Druze began to look to the regime to protect them from the Sunni majority, to ensure that they wouldn’t become second class citizens or ahal ath-thimma. Maybe the elite in those minority groups didn’t accept this outlook, but they didn’t deviate too much from their people.



You could call it a crisis of national confidence. And this sectarianism has weakened the prospects of an ethnically cross-cutting, political opposition from emerging in Syria. It’s very important that parties emerge in which Christians, Sunnis, Kurds, and Alawis can meet. The Communist party fulfilled that function in the past, but it has suffered a crisis of its own. Now Christians, Sunnis, and Alawis participate in the party but the Kurds have left. Some Kurds still participate in an opportunist way, but that’s it.



When the regime cracked down on the organizations of the opposition, the parties were the solution that society stumbled upon. When you repress the parties, for all practical purposes you are imprisoning the people in a framework of traditional or family-centric membership. If I’m prohibited from being Nasserist or Baathist or Communist, I will be Sunni or Alawi or Kurdish. The crushing of independent, free political life in Syria has fostered a rebirth of sectarianism and this has created this crisis.



[The third reason is economic – in short, Syrians are too poor to get involved in politics.]

He accuses me of colonialist attitudes and racism. Here he falls into the same trench with Bush -anyone who says Syria is not ready for democracy is a racist. I guess he believes, as Bush does, that God wants every country to be a democracy tomorrow? This is the ultimate neocon trap and `Asad has fallen into it. So America was right to have tried to export democracy to Iraq. Its only mistake was how it did it, disbanding the army, purging all Baathists, etc. If the Iraqis were ready for democracy then Bush's idea was sound - only the execution was faulty. The Angry Arab is blinded by his bile. Anyone who has taken democracy 101 knows it has nothing to do with blood, race, or DNA. Nurturing democracy has everything to do with institutions and culture, which are ever changing. Syria's institutions and culture are far from democratic. The argument that a liberal culture and proper institutions need to be cultivated before elections are carried out, especially in newly formed nations and deeply segmented societies like those of the Levant, are not new.I wish Asad would describe one democratic institution in Syria. He certainly wouldn't choose the schools, where memorization of authorities is the key to any exam. There are no essay exams in Syria - only memorization - often from the text written by the professor. Here is one example. I was once given a stack of 500 blue books by a professor of English literature at the University of Damascus. It was the final exam and the only grade the students would received for the course. Every answer on every exam, save six exams, were verbatim regurgitations of the professor's lectures. Some enterprising student had recorded, transcribed and Xeroxed the notes of the professor's lectures and sold them to the rest of the class. The students memorized the lectures, including the copious misspellings and grammar mistakes of the transcriber. They then down-loaded them onto the blue book from memory. That is not the foundation of free thinking. The professor explained that the students passed if they memorized adequately. This is the standard practice in Syrian universities. It is not only my definition of an authoritarian education, however.Abdullah Dardari, Syria's deputy Prime Minister recently released the "National Human Development Report - 2005: Education and Human Development in Syria." It is scathing attack on the authoritarian methods used in the Syrian schools. He used the word democracy at least four times in the executive summary and argued that only introducing critical thinking and promoting a real clash of ideas would develop the true potential of the Syrian people. But I am quoting a "native" informant, an old colonialist trick. The goofy Arab won't like that. He wants me to quote opinion surveys. But they don't exist in Syria - why don't they exist? Because Syria is authoritarian.Here is a quote from Dardari's summary of findings:In Short, Dardari describes how authoritarianism, inadequate resources, centralized rote learning, and no libraries promote stunted human development in Syria, ever growing drop-out and decreasing graduation rates at every level of Syrian education. It produces an education that does not serve the needs of the economy or the human desire to be free and creative. In his concluding lines he calls for greater freedom as the key for Syrian development. He writes, "Education is the cornerstone of human development in Syria. Fundamentally, it produces choices in people's lives. Human development, it would seem, is nothing if not the freedom of opportunity."Dardari's no-nonsense criticism of Syria's failing education system was an extraordinary breath of fresh air. I went to the public introduction of the report, which was attended by the relevant ministers and Asma al-Asad, among others. You could have heard a pin drop in the audience during the long and technical, power-point presentation of the main body of the report. Syrians are not used to hearing real criticism of their country by government officials. Jamal Barout, the author and presenter of the main findings stunned everyone when he projected a chart on the wall showing the comparison of Syrian and Israeli educational spending in order to drive home Syria's inadequacies. It was a refreshing and new honesty. Everyone loved it, even though the facts about the deterioration of Syrian education over the last decade were depressing. Better to say the truth than hid behind the usual anodyne blah blah that the Angry Arab and Rime Allaf would have us consume. Their desire to hide, or cover up, the truth because it is “insulting” stands in the way of real progress and the development of democratic institutions. I don’t think we should dispute that Syrian institutions and culture suffer from too little liberalism and democracy.Reem Allaf writes:Here again we get a whiff of wounded ethnic pride, but Reem does not actually present a counter argument. She just says I am "insulting and completely wrong" about authoritarianism in Syrian society.Evidence for this lack of liberalism in Syrian mosques and religious education can be found in my recent survey of the main ideas contained in the school textbooks that all Syrian school children must read and memorize as part of their state education. Here is the essay: "Islamic Education in Syria: Undoing Secularism, " Also Translated into Arabic here. It begins:If fact, there is not one mention of Shiite, Alawi, Druze or other Islamic traditions in Syria's religious curriculum. This is not liberalism and does not prepare Syrians to understand "the other" or get along in a world where religious tolerance is not "enforced by the government." Also see the section on the ideal Islamic government recommended for Syria. It is not very democratic. I include plenty of quotes from the school texts, so you don't have to take my word for it.The next disagreement Rime has with me is over the effectiveness of the liberal Syrian opposition and how its members feel about regime collapse in Syria and the nature of Syrian society. These are important questions and deserve debate. Michael Young also disputes me on this. Let me quote Rime at some length First: Rime claims that Syria’s opposition members believe that they are prepared to govern, but she does not quote anyone.Let me quote the dean of the Syria opposition, Riad al-Turk, who is often called the “Mandela” of the Syrian opposition. I interviewed him at length earlier this year. You can search for it on "Syria Comment." But here is a paragraph from an interview that Joe Pace did with Riad al-Turk only two weeks ago. The entire interview will be posted soon by Joe on Syria comment. Here is Riad al-Turk’s reply to Joe’s question about whether the opposition is ready to govern.Here is how Yasin Hajj Salih answered the same questions. (Yasin is one of the smartest and most respected members of civil society here. He spent many years in prison for his support of the Communist Party. I must thank Joe Pace for sending me his interview with Hajj Salih and choosing Syria Comment as the place to publish. This interview is all transcribed and waiting to be published as soon as Yasin gives it the OK. I asked Yasin similar questions during a meeting a week ago. He was excited to see the regime in the docket, because he had been tortured in prison, as so many have been. All the same, he was very concerned and fearful about the future of the country.)I don’t have to add very much to these statements by two of the smartest and most experienced leaders of the Syrian opposition. Riad al-Turk contradicts Rime’s assertion that the opposition believes it is ready to rule or has mobilized more than 200 followers. After all, he says: “Anyone who tells you that the opposition is effective or doing a good job is lying to you.”Hajj Salih argues that the reemergence of sectarian identity and the debilitating ethnic and communal divisions in Syrian society have made the regime the one stabilizing factor in the minds of the people and that the opposition is divided and weak. He argues: "sectarianism has weakened the prospects of an ethnically cross-cutting, political opposition from emerging in Syria." He adds, "the regime under these circumstances becomes the solution in the sense that it is the only thing that prevents the eruption of ethnic conflict."Everyone believes that the Asad regime has played a vital role in impeding the emergence of an effective civil society and democratic opposition. This is why many Americans and Lebanese,and a few Syrians, argue that America and France should destroy the regime in Syria.I believe, and argued in my op-ed, that this solution is too dangerous because it is likely to open Pandora’s box and let out the furies of chaos and war. I believe the West should have engaged with Bashar to use its considerable might and economic leverage to support the liberalization of Syrian society. I believe Bashar could have been part of the solution. The West should have allied itself with those regime members - such as Dardari and many others, who are struggling for reform within the present system. It must also support the democratic opposition, which it has not done. This is a long and tedious solution to Syria’s and America’s problems. It is much harder than imposing more sanctions on Syria.America is now locking the West into a sanctions regime that will only impoverish Syrians without toppling the regime. This is how sanctions worked in Iran, Serbia, Iraq, Cuba, Palestine… This will only lead to the Gaza syndrome. When the regime does finally fall, perhaps in a decade, Syrian society will be so abused, uneducated and radicalized that the situation will be infinitely worse and Syrians will be less able to find a peaceful solution to their problems. If the West would work with the regime to provide economic growth and administrative reform, etc. -- these are things I believe Bashar is capable of delivering in small doses – Syria would develop in a more positive direction. Were the West to support reform rather than revolution in Syria, or just simply leave it along, I believe things would be better in the long run and Syrians would find a way out of their present impasse and Baathist quagmire. I do not mean the West should or could provide financial support on the level of Jordan or Egypt, but merely modest technical support. After all, look how long it took Egypt to improve its economic situation and begin realizing the effects of the infitah? It has been 30 years since Sadat began opening up Egypt. Only in the last 5 years have we begun to see real positive results and increased growth rates. Sadat was assassinated and Mubarak has had tremendous western help. It is not easy transforming a society. That is the lesson of Egypt and Jordan. The fragility of the Middle Eastern state and the dangers of breaking it are everywhere to see - Lebanon, Iraq, Algeria, Sudan, and Iran to name a few. There are no good options for the West in Syria - there are only less bad ones. I think supporting the present regime to reform rather than setting it up to fail is the wisest option. Opponents of this view say Bashar has had five years and failed - no more chances. I think this is a foolish time line.It has belatedly come to my attention that Michael Young of the Daily Star has critiqued my argument in an opinion piece . I don't have time to do it justice with a proper response right now, though I think I have answered many of his arguments above. I have the greatest respect for Michael and have found his arguments and analysis the most challenging and difficult to contend with.Like many who are fed up with Bashar and the Baathist regime, Michael believes I am too optimistic about Syria. I would argue that I am more pessimistic than Michael is. He is a real believer that the Middle East is ready for democracy. I am not. He believes that if the evil regimes in the region are eliminated, good societies will find a better and happier solution to governance. I do not believe Syrian society has an answer right now to how to govern Syria. Unlike Michael, I believe that the turmoil likely to be produced in the wake of government collapse will destroy the most positive aspects of Syrian society - its fun loving conviviality and peacefulness. I think things would radicalize quickly here. I believe the great majority of peaceful and tolerant people would be overwhelmed quickly by those with guns, who are willing to use them and kill. I think we would see Syrian Zarqawis emerge. They would find followers, and, with a few killings, radicalize the many peaceful Syrians, who cannot see themselves bearing malice toward fellow Syrians today. Hate would spread and everyone would be forced to take the side of their religious or ethnic community. This is what we saw happen in Lebanon in the 1970s. This is what is happening in Iraq today. It can happen in Syria. It is not an insult to good liberal Syrians to say so. It is the unfortunate reality. They want to find a way out of the Baathist trap - but I don't suspect most will like what America is cooking up, as Michael thinks they will. Also, Michael wants justice for Lebanon and for the death of Hariri. That is a good thing. I don't think Lebanon will get it through regime-change in Syria. I think a broken Syria will hurt Lebanon's prospects for binding its own society together, growing its economy, and producing a better Middle East.Michael, Rime and `Asad must be able to reasure us about what will come after Asad and regime collapse here. If they can convince me that positive things will happen, I am ready to conceed. As my mother-in-law always asks me: "shoo al-badiil? What is the alternative." When they can answer that question in a way that convinces me that Bashar is worse than than their scenario, I will be happy. I just cannot go with a faith-based scenario: "trust America - Syria is prepared to produce something better than it has today."Also read Tony Badran's fun post: " Bash Josh Fest" in which he takes on Rime and `Asad, while giving me a good black eye - or trying to. He also has an earlier post criticising my article. It is similar to Michael's, and he promises further debate, which I look forward to. Tony has some good chops.Here are more comments I received:Mr. Landis: Syria was a flourishing democracy with plenty of democratic institutions prior to March 8-1963. It was chaos but it was democracy nevertheless!!!??? Let me tell you a story, when I was a little child, I went with my mother to the polling place with tears in her eyes...she was voting for the first time in her life for the president of Syria. Few months later, we all had tears in our eyes when the Soviet-Made Baathists tanks were rolling down the streets of Damascus. The tanks tracks destroying the wonderful streets of Damascus became etched in my mind to this day. That is despite the fact that I have lived most of my life in the USA. Sir, I will never, ever forget the insults and other shameful expressions being hurled at my community and my neighbors by the Baathists hooligans and their armed thugs passing through the peaceful streets of my area.You need to realize that Syria has over than 10,000 years of social evolution, many do's and don’ts...a true problem for the Syrians, but not insurmountable. To say who is going to replace the current orders of things in that poor country, my answer is plenty. Plenty of people with good will toward their own people and the country at large. You also need to realize, as you may already know, that Syria was one of the most progressive country of the world prior to that dark curse of March 8-1963. Today, Syria today is in the bottom of the abyss, ruled by dungeons, basements, lonely incarceration cells and mass murders. Finally, I would like the say that the 9/11 attack on my beloved city NYC, has awakened all Americans from Syrian decent, new immigrants, first generations, second generations and so forth...I do not know how things will turn out, but you must seriously realize that things will never, ever be the same....Syria, eventually will return to its roots, civil, liberal, free and democratic.Best regards,Houston, TX.-----Dear Professor, I would first like to start by saying, on behalf of all the people that really know the Syrian way of life, thank you for posting that article. I'm a first generation Syrian American. My father and mother came to this country after the 1967 arab-Israeli war. I have been to that country over 12 times in my 30 years of life, and it's the most peaceful place on earth. It really upsets me when comments are made about Syria not doing enough to stop terrorism. The world condemned Hafez-Al Assad in early 80's when he crushed an armed rebellion of the radical Muslim Brotherhood , which at the time had members like Ayman Al-Zawhiri Bin Laden right hand man. I sometimes think had he not done that, Sunni extremism would have a different meaning today ,(Sunni ultra-extremism). I can truly say that your comments hit the nail right on the head. Peace in the middle east can only go through Damascus, even now on the eastern front in Iraq. As for the Lebanese ingratitude towards Syria, really makes me sick. Syria was the only country that brought stability in the region. A multi force that included the U.S. and France, weren’t able to achieve that objective. Most of the comments that replied to your article were mostly from racist and ignorant people. I applaud you sir, your have courage that I wish our politicians have. It's written in the Bible that Damascus will be the last city standing.----Dear Joshua,I understood the following: As long as the Sunnis make the majority Syria does not deserve a democracy. So either we kill the majority of Sunnis and make them a minority or remain under the Assad Junta. This is your advice to the US government.How about allowing and pressuring the establishment of a moderate religious parties who do not advocate the killing of innocents? Why don’t you see this as an option.----Joshua, I really enjoy reading your website. I am a Christian Syrian and have family which live there, our family biggest concerns in the region is Assad family is pressured out of power. The Sunni had confronted many of our family members and had threaten to have them killed if the Assad family is overthrown. So being able to get your daily comments and others which contribute to your reports have been very helpful.Meanwhile, David Yuhas has this novel solution:"Look to the spine for the source of many an ailment" said some old Greek...& in Iraq we have a case in point. The natural Syrian-Iraqi border is not the current Percy Cox Line of 1923, which is nothing but a relic of the British Empire, but, the Tigris-44 Line. Iraq does not have a "Sunni Triangle", but a "Syrian West". The proper name for "Anbar Province" is "The Syrian Desert". The Baath Party is not an Iraqi party, but a Syrian party, founded in Damascus in the 1930s. Saddam Hussein, ne "al Tikriti" is an ethnic Syrian, & only an Iraqi citizen because, in the aftermath of WWI, Britain imagined it could rule Iraq through Syrian proxies if it put the Syrian Desert on the Iraqi side of the Syrian-Iraqi border.With this proposal, Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia would be neutralized...& Iraq would be free to rebuild its infrastructure & get back on its feet.--I read your article with great interest. This is exactly the type of analysis one would expect from a Professor at an institution known for being such a center of Middle East expertise as the University of Oklahoma.Regards,----Dear Professor, I would first like to start by saying, on behalf of all the people that really know the Syrian way of life, thank you for posting that article. I'm a first generation Syrian American. My father and mother came to this country after the 1967 arab-Israeli war. I have been to that country over 12 times in my 30 years of life, and it's the most peaceful place on earth. It really upsets me when comments are made about Syria not doing enough to stop terrorism. The world condemned Hafez-Al Assad in early 80's when he crushed an armed rebellion of the radical Muslim Brotherhood , which at the time had members like Ayman Al-Zawhiri Bin Laden right hand man. I sometimes think had he not done that, Sunni extremism would have a different meaning today ,(Sunni ultra-extremism). I can truly say that your comments hit the nail right on the head. Peace in the middle east can only go through Damascus, even now on the eastern front in Iraq. As for the Lebanese ingratitude towards Syria, really makes me sick. Syria was the only country that brought stability in the region. A multi force that included the U.S. and France, weren’t able to achieve that objective. Most of the comments that replied to your article were mostly from racist and ignorant people. I applaud you sir, your have courage that I wish our politicians have. It's written in the Bible that Damascus will be the last city standing.-----Dear Joshua,I understood the following: As long as the Sunnis make the majority Syria does not deserve a democracy. So either we kill the majority of Sunnis and make them a minority or remain under the Assad Junta. This is your advice to the US government.How about allowing and pressuring the establishment of a moderate religious parties who do not advocate the killing of innocents? Why don’t you see this as an option.-----Joshua, I really enjoy reading your website. I am a Christian Syrian and have family which live there, our family biggest concerns in the region is Assad family is pressured out of power. The Sunni had confronted many of our family members and had threaten to have them killed if the Assad family is overthrown. So being able to get your daily comments and others which contribute to your reports have been very helpful.----Meanwhile, David Yuhas has this novel solution:"Look to the spine for the source of many an ailment" said some old Greek...& in Iraq we have a case in point. The natural Syrian-Iraqi border is not the current Percy Cox Line of 1923, which is nothing but a relic of the British Empire, but, the Tigris-44 Line. Iraq does not have a "Sunni Triangle", but a "Syrian West". The proper name for "Anbar Province" is "The Syrian Desert". The Baath Party is not an Iraqi party, but a Syrian party, founded in Damascus in the 1930s. Saddam Hussein, ne "al Tikriti" is an ethnic Syrian, & only an Iraqi citizen because, in the aftermath of WWI, Britain imagined it could rule Iraq through Syrian proxies if it put the Syrian Desert on the Iraqi side of the Syrian-Iraqi border.With this proposal, Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia would be neutralized...& Iraq would be free to rebuild its infrastructure & get back on its feet.-- ---I read your article with great interest. This is exactly the type of analysis one would expect from a Professor at an institution known for being such a center of Middle East expertise as the University of Oklahoma.Regards,-----Dear Professor Landis,Ihave red with great interest of one of the rare articles concerning Syria written by a competent and clear-sighted analyst.Your article in the NYH of September 20,2005 is brilliant but...is this a shout in the desert?I am a Swiss lawyer following closely events in the Middle East for over 40 years and travelled there often, including Syria acbout 6 years ago. I am devastated by the lack of understanding by the current US Administration about this area of the world, its ignorance of the true historical and religious background, One blunder after another has now placed the US in the position of the hated invader instead of the "liberator".Your article is a breath of fesh air.Please continue,perhaps one day it will be heard in Washington DC.Best regards,Pierre R.Monney