Can Syria go it alone

The inclusion of President Bashar al Assad’s brother and brother in law in a confidential version of the Mehlis report leaked on October 21st has deep implications for the Syrian regime. The pressure game is now on, as the United States and France push for Security Council Resolution that demands Syrian compliance with the ongoing investigation into Rafik al Hariri’s death or face possible UN sanctions. What remains to be seen is how international pressure will function in the milieu of Syrian reform, as the globalised environment so many Syrians have been looking to for hope begins to turn against them. So far, the Syrian government has organized poorly attended popular protests against what Damascus calls an “unprofessional investigation”, and all the while the implications of the report are beginning to sink in among Syria’s business classes. Since Hariri’s assassination in February, power in the Syrian regime has been centralized