[BostonCard]

There’s a lesson for Putin in this: things look very stable—until they don’t.  Like, two weeks ago, did anyone have “the Assad regime falls” on their bingo card?  Even as the rebels kept marching south, I figured that at some point, the regime would stiffen and stop them.

It also makes me wonder what would have happened if Progozin had gone all the way to Moscow.  Most likely the Russian army stops him, but I could see a scenario where everyone looks for someone else to stop him and he gets all the way to the Kremlin and it’s Putin shoes plane explodes in mid-air.

BC

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The Syrian dictator’s last stand
https://econ.st/49qrpnc

A desperate Mr Assad has tried courting Arab states. Multiple sources say he made a personal appeal to Muhammad bin Zayed, the president of the UAE, who has a well-known hatred of Islamist groups like HTS. He has also begged for help from Egypt, Jordan and other countries. But nobody is willing to help a regime that now seems a lost cause. “He’s telling everyone he wants to fight,” one well-connected Syrian says of Mr Assad. “The problem is that no one else wants to fight for him.”

BC

[BostonCard]

There’s a lesson for Putin in this: things look very stable—until they don’t.  Like, two weeks ago, did anyone have “the Assad regime falls” on their bingo card?  Even as the rebels kept marching south, I figured that at some point, the regime would stiffen and stop them.

It also makes me wonder what would have happened if Progozin had gone all the way to Moscow.  Most likely the Russian army stops him, but I could see a scenario where everyone looks for someone else to stop him and he gets all the way to the Kremlin and it’s Putin shoes plane explodes in mid-air.

BC

---

Life comes at you fast: You’ve been given free access to this article from The Economist as a gift. You can open the link five times within seven days. After that it will expire.

The Syrian dictator’s last stand
https://econ.st/49qrpnc

A desperate Mr Assad has tried courting Arab states. Multiple sources say he made a personal appeal to Muhammad bin Zayed, the president of the UAE, who has a well-known hatred of Islamist groups like HTS. He has also begged for help from Egypt, Jordan and other countries. But nobody is willing to help a regime that now seems a lost cause. “He’s telling everyone he wants to fight,” one well-connected Syrian says of Mr Assad. “The problem is that no one else wants to fight for him.”

BC