Fog Of War

Sorry for not writing more frequently this week. The story to comment on, of course, the assassination of General Francois al-Hajj. Sadly, I don't have any more knowledge on who killed the man than is available in the wire reports. For some reason, Bashar doesn't take my phone calls any more. And I have precisely zero interest in fitting his assassination into some pre-packaged ideological framework that will sound plausible only to those who already agree with me. Apparently, I'm not the only one. Simply put, there is not enough information here for me to write anything intelligent.

In more concrete news, the gap between March 8 and March 14 is only widening. Aoun's appointment as the chief negotiator with March 14 would be funny, if it wasn't so sad. The hope of the pro-government forces was that Amal and Hezbollah could convince Aoun, who has the most to lose in a Suleiman Presidency, to go along with the deal. Allowing him to speak for the whole opposition is tantamount to announcing that there will be no resolution any time soon.

Meanwhile, in Syria, there has been a new crackdown on dissent. More than 30 dissidents from a broad spectrum of political backgrounds -- Commmunists to Islamists -- were rounded up by the authorities. Whatever deal America and Syria cut at Annapolis (if any at all), it certainly had nothing to do with Syria's human rights record.