Summary of the current situation in Syria, as published on antiwar.com

If Assad does prove he is in control and succeeds in bringing these meaningful changes at the cost of less than a few thousand casualties, he will have triumphed.  Those who perished during the protests will be remembered as martyrs, and Syria will have taken a gigantic leap forward.  Assad could still emerge a hero, but the window is closing fast and hopes in him are duly fading.

 If, on the other hand, he can’t manage to deliver that much after 11 years as President and when stakes are this high, then quite frankly he’d be best described by the term he once infamously used to refer to the compliant rulers of Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia: a “half-man”.