`Ali Mamluk

With the appointment of `Ali Mamluk to a key intelligence leading role, Bashshar is opting for the ruthlessness style of his father in the Hama massacre.  The regime having foiled the coup plot orchestrated by the US (Operation Damascus-Aleppo) may have felt emboldened.  But the regime will not secure its rule, no matter what.  Aleppo may be overtaken but there would still be pocked of armed conflicts in various places.  The future of Syria can be read in the history of the Lebanese civil war but this time the war will engulf both countries at once and without a regional hegemon to come and impose his/her version of ruthless and repressive order.