No Glasnost in Syria!

It is more like glasbust really – going for broke because you don’t know how to do anything else. Loosening your hold on power is simply out of the question, because you know the whole thing will come crashing down around you. It was meticulously designed to do just that. If not, there are those who will make sure the whole thing comes down out of sheer spite, and you know it, and you know them.

So, the best you can do in this situation is to keep relying on the same old corrupt and incompetent elite, who will make sure the whole thing will come crashing down if you try to replace them, and hope that they will, somehow, discover wisdom and sobriety along the way. To make the process a slightly more credible, so you can believe in it yourself, not to mention be able to sell it to others, you bring in people like Abdallah Al-Dardari and Imad Moustapha and hope they will help improve your image.

But these people are not real decision-makers – they are only advisors whose recommendations will always be filtered through prism of parochial interests of the corrupt ruling elite and will lose much of their potential in the process.

Some people insist on seeing the glass half-full, some half-empty, but I see only a dry broken glass and, in a momentary incredulity, I cut myself on the sharp edges. I cannot feel myself bleed and remain willfully blind.