Correction: “Having been to Jordan and Egypt (SINAI)”.
Another point to add. The government is politically repressive, with billboards and posters of Assad everywhere in the country, but less than when the country was run by Assad, Sr. There is one party — the locals call it “Arab democracy”. You can pick up email on Yahoo, see news from most sites, but social network sites like Facebook and self posting video sites like YouTube are blocked, an attempt to prevent using these sites to organize any kind of opposition (I don’t see how that would work).
I also met quite a few Iranians at a Shia mosque in Damascus. They were extremely friendly, very nice and pious people who genuinely liked Americans. I’m usually a hawk on these kinds of matters, but getting to know the Iranians definitely made me question the value of any invasion. Sadly, getting tough as far as bombing of nuclear facilities might be the direction things head, which would definitely prod the Syrians in the direction of the West.
