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It is a year since President Bashar al-Assad's men responded to peaceful demonstrations in the southern Syrian town of Deraa with automatic weapons.
A few weeks before he had blithely told a reporter from the Wall Street Journal that Syria would not catch the virus of revolution that was tearing through the Arab world.
The reason, he said, was that the president shared an ideology with the people, which would give Syria immunity.
The irony of the last 12 months is that Mr Assad was not wrong about the genuine legitimacy he had among much of the population. Many of those who did not like the repressive Syrian system listened to his promises of reform and hoped he would keep them.
Syrians liked the way that he stood up to Israel and the West. He had considerable reflected glory from his support of the leader of Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hassan Nasrallah, who was the rock star of Arab politics after he took on Israel in 2006.
But that did not mean that large sections of the population would accept his explanation for what was happening, as demonstrations spread after the first killings of unarmed protesters in Deraa a year ago.
Riding out storm
Mr Assad said Syria was fighting for its life against a violent conspiracy directed from abroad by foreigners. Too many people knew too much about life in one of the tightest police states in the Middle East to believe this.
A year on, the Assad regime is facing an armed insurrection. The regime has powerful military forces, which are being used to drive armed rebels out of important centres of revolt.
They started in the Damascus suburbs, moved on to Homs, the Idlib and now seem to be concentrating on Deraa again.
But the thing about asymmetric warfare - the fight of the weak against the strong - is that it is not about pitched battles.
For the weaker side, keeping going matters above all. If the Gulf Arabs keep their promise to supply arms to the rebels then the uprising will increase in intensity.
So far President Assad is riding out the storm, and appears to believe that he can win. As well as the military, he has genuine support from his own Alawite community, and other Syrian minorities, including Christians, who fear what the consequences of a violent change of power.
Another reason for the regime's continuing cohesion is that key jobs are either in the hands of members of his family - or other trusted Alawites - who are not likely to defect.
And Mr Assad has Russia to protect him at the UN Security Council.
The Russians, perhaps reflecting their isolation on Syria, have displayed some public irritation with the regime in the last few days.
But they value their alliance with Syria, which is Russia's only real friend in the region. Mosocw has a listening post and a naval base in Syria, and does not want to lose them.
International attention is now on the mission by the UN-Arab League envoy, Kofi Annan.
He is trying to stop the killing by starting a political dialogue involving all sides. If his mission fails, and civilians continue to die, there will be another round of pressure for direct military intervention by foreign powers.