Comrade Amer wrote me this yesterday (I cite with his permission): "The regime gets stronger by the day. The violence is in its favor. You should always remember not to believe the media mood, it is very different from the mood in Syria. Al-jazeera seems to believe that they brought down Mubarak and that they can bring down Assad by doing the same coverage. Their entire coverage has changed 180 degrees, even on Iraq and America and Israel. I know what happened: Saudi told them that if they do not step up and control the situation and rule the region themselves, the poor Arabs will take away their oil. This is the real war As`ad, everything else is fluff."