The Last Refuge of Arab governments is...Islam. The Syrian Ba`th is now preparing for a conference of Islamic parties. I miss the strict secularism of Salah Jadid (but not much else about him). It can be argued that the government of Salah Jadid was the most secular government in contemporary Arab history. More secular than than the past Marxist government in what was South Yemen (before the Marxist leaders shot at one another in a Politburo meeting, that split along tribal lines).