News from Syria and Iraq

Syrian warships are currently shelling their own country. Reports give 25 dead in Latakia, but communications are very difficult and the real number is almost certainly much higher and will rise. Whatever moral justification Assad might attempt, a regime that resorts to bombarding its own cities is invariably a regime that is struggling to maintain control.

Occasionally, very occasionally, the US establishment media notices that there is also a world beyond the US. Thus I was greatly surprised to find that CNN and the NYT had in fact covered this story, albeit after the news that someone just got voted off the island in the presidential edition of Survivor.

The same was not true of the news from Libya. It appears that the rebels are currently gaining ground in both the West and the East of the country. If reports from the rebels are true, Gadaffi is reduced to holding only Tripoli and Sirte. If he loses either, he is almost certainly finished. Even so, the war can last quite a bit longer before the end.

It is not so long ago that the establishment media were telling us that the affairs of this region were the single most important security issue for the United States of America. I wonder what changed?