History has not been kind to Syria's desire for change The
National 16 Dec 11 A dog in Lebanon, an old joke goes, was so
hungry, mangy and tired of civil war that he escaped to Syria.
To the surprise of the other dogs, he returned a few months
later. Seeing him better groomed and fatter than before, they
asked whether the Syrians had been good to him. "Very good."
"Did they feed and wash you?" "Yes." "Then why did you come
back?" "I want to bark." It is impossible not to sympathise with
Syrians' desire to be treated like adults. The Syrian regime is
not alone, of course, among Middle East dictatorships in
regarding their people as subjects rather than citizens. Under
the portrait of the great dictator, little dictators grant some
supplicants permits, demand bribes from others and abuse the
rest. Syrians can identify with what Italians under Mussolini
used to say: "The problem is not the big dictator. It is all the
little dictators." Little dictators, though, thrive under the
big dictator. But all dictators ar