The road to Damascus

Though it has not (yet) reached Egyptian proportions, the people of Syria are in open revolt. "There were rumors of cracks within the insular and opaque leadership of the nation, while the government sent out competing messages of compromise and crackdowns," reported the New York Times. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, 45, a British-educated eye doctor, once pompusly said, "When our interests matched, the Americans have been good to us, and when the interests differed, they wanted us to mold ourselves to them, which we refused." It looks like he made the wrong call, and price for it will be steep. The Hitlerian mustache doesn't help, either, Herr Assad.