Dr. Rustum Ghazalah: you know that a Ph.D. can become, for some people, a title, something like "lord" or "Pasha" in the bad old days. So when Rustum Ghazalah was Syrian intelligence chief in Lebanon, he "obtained" a Ph.D. in history, we were told. His advisor and mentor was Hassan Hallaq of the Lebanese University, who also is an enthsiastic Hariri functionary. And when Syrian troops left Lebanon, people mentioned this fact. Hallaq insisted that Ghazalah did his work--at school that is, just as `Udayy had obtained a Ph.D. in Baghdad, and Rif `at Al-Asad had obtained a Ph.D. from the Soviet Union. And did Bashshar's brother-in-law (I mistakenly wrote son-in-law yesterday. He of course is married to Bashshar's sister, Bushrah), Asaf Shawkat, not get himself a Ph.D. too?