Dumb analysis in the New York Times

"The uprising in Syria has not succeeded partly because President Bashar al-Assad‘s government has violently thwarted any attempt to establish any equivalent of Tahrir Square in Cairo or Benghazi in Libya."  But if masses of people turn out in Damascus and Aleppo, no army can stop them.  You don't think that the Egyptian army tried to prevent people from gathering in Tahrir?  How dumb is this analysis?  But what do I expect from an article that cites the "insights" of war criminal, Rif`at Al-Asad.