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The Obama administration has announced new sanctions on those who provide Syria and Iran with technologies of repression: “On Monday, he (President Obama) announced an executive order that allows U.S. officials for the first time to impose sanctions on foreign nationals found to have used new technologies, including cellphone tracking and Internet monitoring, to [...] The Economist‘s proposal for Syria shows just how powerless the international community is: “Far better to attack Mr Assad’s regime where it is vulnerable—by peeling away his support, both at home among Syria’s minorities and abroad, especially in Russia, its chief defender on the UN Security Council. Both Syria’s Alawites and Vladimir Putin cling [...] Nicholas Blanford examines the question of whether al-Qaeda is involved in Syria’s uprising: “The Assad regime insists that the opposition protests that have rocked the country since March are being driven by ‘armed terrorist groups’ and ‘Islamic militants.’ It has blamed Al Qaeda for three suicide bomb attacks over the past month against security [...] Anthony Shadid fears that what’s happening in Homs could be a harbinger of things to come in Syria: “A harrowing sectarian war has spread across the Syrian city of Homs this month, with supporters and opponents of the government blamed for beheadings, rival gangs carrying out tit-for-tat kidnappings, minorities fleeing for their native villages, [...] Blake Hounshell flags the story of the company installing Syria’s dissent-quenching network: “As Syria’s crackdown on protests has claimed more than 3,000 lives since March, Italian technicians in telecom offices from Damascus to Aleppo have been busy equipping President Bashar al-Assad’s regime with the power to intercept, scan and catalog virtually every e-mail that [...] Robin Yassin-Kassab takes a look at religious minorities and Syria’s uprising: “Tragically, the propaganda is also taken seriously by members of Syria’s minority sects — not by all of them by any stretch, but perhaps by a majority. It’s tragic because perceived minority support for this sadistic regime will inevitably tarnish intersectarian relations in [...] Nir Rosen spends several weeks in Syria and finds a growing belief in the need to take up arms among the opposition: “Abu Omar was a senior coordinator in the country’s six-month-old uprising and was involved in opposition activities since 2007. He lamented that to date, the revolution had only succeeded in costing the [...] |
Blake Hounshell (aka praktike), our co-founder and main man, is managing editor of Foreign Policy magazine. He's now reporting on the Egyptian Revolution from Cairo. 
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