Mediocrates
11-26-2011, 02:41 PM
The essentially pro-regime stance of Professor Joshua Landis of the University of Oklahoma is well-established. To mention one small example, last April he praised (http://mideast.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/04/05/as_quiet_returns_Syrians_ponder_the_future) what he called “the stability that the Assad family has enforced in Syria and... the vision of tolerance and secularism they have promoted.”
But there are a number of other commentators whose support for the Syrian dictatorship deserves more careful scrutiny. Probably the most relentless is Alistair Crooke, a former British intelligence officer who is a strong supporter of official Iranian ideology and foreign policy, as Michael Weiss and I have demonstrated (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/hussein-ibish-phd/alastair-crooke-the-exspy_b_914519.html). It is surely Assad’s alliance with Tehran that has prompted Crooke’s enthusiasm for the Syrian leader.
Crooke initially claimed that Assad was immune from any popular uprising because of his opposition to the West and Israel, and his support for “resistance.” In April, he actually predicted (http://mideast.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/04/07/the_arab_awakening_and_syrian_exceptionalism), “Assad will emerge with his stature enhanced, and Syria will be... resuming its traditional place at the center of Arab politics.”
Written by Hussain Ibish whom I increasingly respect as a voice of reason and sanity.
But there are a number of other commentators whose support for the Syrian dictatorship deserves more careful scrutiny. Probably the most relentless is Alistair Crooke, a former British intelligence officer who is a strong supporter of official Iranian ideology and foreign policy, as Michael Weiss and I have demonstrated (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/hussein-ibish-phd/alastair-crooke-the-exspy_b_914519.html). It is surely Assad’s alliance with Tehran that has prompted Crooke’s enthusiasm for the Syrian leader.
Crooke initially claimed that Assad was immune from any popular uprising because of his opposition to the West and Israel, and his support for “resistance.” In April, he actually predicted (http://mideast.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/04/07/the_arab_awakening_and_syrian_exceptionalism), “Assad will emerge with his stature enhanced, and Syria will be... resuming its traditional place at the center of Arab politics.”
Written by Hussain Ibish whom I increasingly respect as a voice of reason and sanity.