DAMASCUS

“THIS HAD TO have been arranged. It looks an awful lot like Afghanistan. It’s fun for Western intelligence in the short term. It’s a sign of Russian and Iranian weakness. I don’t know what season they’re going to label it. Arab revolutions are always seasonal, it seems. But in the longer term, there an awful lot of crazies in Syria and just across the border in Iraq. Sometimes, it’s a case of better the tyrant you know.”

Professor Bulbus Tarquin of Soddom and Gomorrah College, an online university devoted to producing liberal democrats in the Middle East, lost a hand in Iraq, an eye in Libya, his dignity in Egypt and his faith in Syria, when he took part the various revolts and revolutions of the Arab Spring years ago.

“It’s as if the Western media just dust off the same old story, refill it with different names and publish. These Syrian rebels everyone is cheering may well be the freedom-loving liberal democrats we all wish for, but then again, they may not. Arranged overthrows are just that. Mere changes of power. Let’s see who emerges from the cheering. Assad was a puppet. What replaces him may be someone else’s puppet. Or even worse. Allah U Akbar. Remember that phrase.”