It is looking like Syria’s civil war is going the central government’s way. The dictatorship of King (I mean, “President” for life) Bashar al-Assad looks likely to remain in power. The New York Times reports, for instance, that the government is planning for a new “election,” and looks able to hold it.
By “election,” the government means a celebration of itself and a sub-selection amongst its cronies.
It’s been a terrible war. And it’s having a terrible result. But some time has passed since it looked like it could be any other way.
What good can come, when a war ends up being a fight for dominance between a brutal, if rather secular, tyranny, and Muslim fanatics yearning for a revival of the Caliphate circa 1000 AD, Taliban-style?
The truth is, Syria isn’t ready to join the modern world , at least not in its fundamental culture and view of the individual.
But cry, all lovers of freedom, for the relatively reasonable, Modernist, rebels who’ve been crushed between the two great forces of mid-East illiberalism.
Cry for the decent, ordinary people killed in the fighting, over 100,000 dead .
Cry for the refugees, whose lives are turned upside-down.
Now all that’s left is the brutal, depressing hangover from this latest binge of collectivism and irrationalism.
EXPLORE
Edward Hudgins, " Islam's Dreary Cultural Darkness "
David Kelley, " Does Islam Need a Reformation? "
George Walsh, " The History and Creed of Islam "