Quote Originally Posted by Ash View Post
Most of his countrymen prefer him now to the headchoppers, which is the choice everyone needs to make at this point. The armed opposition are not the pro-democracy campaigners of the old days (in fact democratic reforms have since been implemented). They are Islamists. Assad is both clinging on to power and maintaining a secular state against an Islamist, terrorist state. Pick a side.
Always a bit of both, innit. For decades, we've tolerated, even propped up, his sort so long as they've been able to keep a lid on things.

Tempora mutantur though and a' that.