Rami Makhluf

Anthony Shadid's article today begins thus:  "Syria’s most powerful businessman, a confidant and cousin of President Bashar al-Assad, announced on Thursday that he was quitting business and moving to charity work..."  That is not quite accurate.  The promises and announcement by Makhluf were so vague and so unspecific that no one could tell what he was promising, except that his shares in Syriatel would be sold.  As for other business, he only promised to redirect their goals towards public good--whatever that means.   I remember when comrade Bassam Haddad would tell me about Syrian public hate for Makhluf, that people in Syria would be too scared to even mention his name and would use special code names to refer to him.