After a week filled with promises — about lifting the hatedstate of emergency, granting the right for peaceful protests, abolishing kangaroo state security courts — the Syrian regime brutally shot down its own credibility along with hundreds of its citizens late last month. As Executive went to press, the crackdown was continuing relentlessly, with the military increasingly involved alongside security forces and irregular troops loyal to the regime in closing off cities, raiding homes and shooting protesters. Fridays in Damascus are now filled with fear. On each day of prayer, groups of armed men take up position all over the capital, near mosques, ministries, court houses, intersections and entry roads. They are literally everywhere, brandishing their often-identical clubs, ready and eager, it seems, to beat anybody who dares utter the slightest expression of dissent. The weapons are not there for show. Since the protests started in early March after a
