The wave of popular revolts rocking the Arab world has rolled into Syria, which this week saw pro-democracy protests flare up across the country. Thousands of people took to the streets of cities and towns from Latakia in the northwest to Daraa in the south, and called on President Bashar al-Assad to repeal 48-year-old laws that ban opposition parties and grant sweeping powers to security forces. Assad responded with a brutal crackdown. More than 60 protesters were killed during clashes with police, who broke up marches with bullets, batons, and tear gas. Assad did fire his cabinet and acknowledged that reform was needed, but said “chaos’’ would not be tolerated. Protesters, he said, were dupes of “conspirators” working for “an Israeli agenda.”
The collapse of this “murderous” regime can’t come soon enough, said Elliott Abrams in The Washington Post. Assad claimed to be a modernizer when he inherited power in 2000, but he has proved every bit as bloodthirsty as his late father, Hafez. He has turned Syria into a “pathway for jihadists from around the world to enter Iraq” and kill U.S. troops. In neighboring Lebanon, Assad has ordered the “car-bomb killings” of journalists and politicians who criticize him, and he continues to arm the militant group Hezbollah. It’s clear that the Syrian tyrant is an “enemy of the United States,” said Jeff Jacoby in The Boston Globe. So why isn’t the Obama administration pushing the U.N. and the Arab League to “take as strong a stand against Assad” as they did against Libyan despot Muammar al-Qaddafi?
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Why does the U.S. need China's rare earth metals?Today's Big Question Beijing has a 'near monopoly' on tech's raw materials
-
When did divorce begin?The Explaine Couples have always split up, but the institution has undergone major changes over the years
-
What are your retirement savings account options?The explainer The two main types of accounts are 401(k) plans and individual retirement accounts (IRAs)
-
Putin’s threat to fracture Ukrainefeature Fears that Russia was building a pretext for an invasion of eastern Ukraine grew, as pro-Kremlin protesters occupied government buildings in three cities.
-
Curbing NSA surveillance
feature The White House said it will propose a broad overhaul of the National Security Agency’s domestic surveillance program.
-
Downsizing the military
feature A new budget plan for the Pentagon would save hundreds of billions of dollars by taking the military off its post-9/11 war footing.
-
Putin ratchets up pressure on Ukraine
feature Russian President Vladimir Putin put 150,000 troops at the Ukraine border on high alert and cut off $15 billion in financial aid.
-
Ukraine on the brink of civil war
feature Ukraine’s capital was engulfed in flames and violence when hundreds of riot police launched an assault on an anti-government protest camp.
-
Ukraine at the breaking point
feature An alliance of opposition groups vowed protests would continue until President Viktor Yanukovych is removed from power.
-
Dim prospects for Syrian talks
feature A long-awaited Syrian peace conference in Montreux, Switzerland, quickly degenerated into a cross fire of bitter accusations.
-
The fight over jobless benefits
feature A bill to restore federal benefits for the long-term unemployed advanced when six Republican senators voted with Democrats.