Right Wing Nut House

Since there have been numerous questions raised recently about coaches and how they dealt with difficult situations, I thought that pointing out the response of Cincinnati head basketball coach Mick Cronin to his players brawling at the end of their blowout loss to fierce rival Xavier would be instructive regarding the right way to respond to serious controversy.

The video is appalling. There was smack talking between the rivals for the entire game. When the ruckus finally broke out, punches were thrown on both sides. One Xavier player was seriously hurt when a blind side straight right by a Cincinnati player felled him. Another Cincy player viciously kicked the injured player as he was trying to get away.

The Xavier players did not cover themselves in glory in the post game press conference. Star player Tu Holloway talked like a thug:

“That’s what you’re going to see from Xavier and Cincinnati,” Holloway said. “We got disrespected a little bit before the game, guys calling us out. We’re a tougher team. We’re grown men over here. We’ve got a whole bunch of gangsters in the locker room — not thugs, but tough guys on the court. And we went out there and zipped them up at the end of the game.”

And then there’s Cronin’s response. Keep in mind the excuse making of Joe Paterno at Penn State and Jim Boeheim at Syracuse when reading these excerpts from the press conference:

Too much glorification of all of sports in our society. The fact is, guys are here to get an education. They represent institutions of higher learning. Xavier has been a great school for years. We are trying to cure cancer at Cincinnati. I got to school at a place where they discovered the vaccine for polio and created Benadryl. I think that’s more important than who wins a basketball game. And our guys need to have appreciation for the fact they are there on a full scholarship. And they’re there to represent institutions with class and integrity. That’s that.

[...]

Absolutely. My players don’t act the right way they will never play another game at Cincinnati. Right now, I just told my guys, I will meet with my AD and my president and I’m going to decide who is on the team going forward. That is what the University of Cincinnati is about. Period.

I’ve never been this embarrassed. I’m hoping President Williams doesn’t ask me to resign after that. We represent an institution of higher learning, it’s way more important than basketball games. Whoever puts that jersey back on - I made everybody take their jersey off and they will not put it on again until they have a full understanding of where they go to school and what the university stands for and how lucky they are to even be there, let alone have a scholarship, because there’s a whole lot of kids that can’t pay for college. And don’t get to go to school. My mom didn’t get to go to UC, she grew up on campus. They couldn’t afford it.

(You made your players take their jerseys off?)

Absolutely, they are all sitting in there with no jersey on. Some of them I physically took them off.

[...]

We talk all the time, toughness is doing the right thing in life. That is what we talk about. If that is the case, you are being provoked, this or that, true toughness, you walk away from it. You take your ass whipping and you go home. You get better.

Certain people want to act a certain way, that’s on them. If that’s who they want to be that’s on them. That is not what we are going to be. Period. That’s not what we are going to be. Am I agitated? Yes. Do I think my guys are somewhat responsible in some way, I don’t know who started it but I can tell you that is not what we are going to be about.

It would be a huge story if Cronin follows through and kicks the guilty parties off the team. From the tape, it appears that at least two and possibly three members of the team are guilty of throwing punches. Will that be enough to bounce them? Will the Cincinnati University president allow the dismissal of half the starting lineup of a very good team that has a chance of making the university a pile of money in the NCAA tournament?

Certainly the sentiments that Cronin expressed can be applauded. Now we’ll see whether those fine words are followed by tough action against players who disgraced their university and the uniforms they wear to represent it.

This blog post originally appeared at The American Thinker

With sectarian violence rearing its ugly head in Afghanistan with the suicide attack on Tuesday that killed 6o Shias in Kabul, the security situation that must be managed by President Karzai has just gone from “hard” to “impossible.”

It would not be surprising to see the Shias respond to this sacrilege - the bombing at one of their holiest shrines on the holiest day of the year. And then what? We’ve seen it before in Iraq with the bombing of the Golden Dome mosque. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and pretty soon the whole country is blind and gumming their food. And in Afghanistan, you have the added weight of ethnic tensions to go with the religious angle. Shias are mostly Hazaras and make up about 20% of the population. They are routinely threatened by the dominant Pashtuns and Uzbeks and it cannot be discounted that there was an ethnic element in the attack.

But utlimately, someone was behind the blast. I examine that question in my FPM article today:

Regardless of whether the claims by the LeJ are true, there is the question of who is ultimately behind the attacks. Some experts say that neither the LeJ or the Afghan Taliban is sophisticated enough to have carried out such brazen, carefully coordinated attacks, and that the group’s former ties to Pakistani intelligence, as well as the Pakistani Taliban, make it likely that one of those two organizations bears ultimate responsibility. LeJ is also loosely affiliated with al-Qaeda which raises questions about the terror network’s plans for a post-NATO Afghanistan. Stirring the sectarian pot to foment chaos in Afghanistan is a possibility given AQ’s actions in Iraq and Pakistan in recent years.

While the LeJ may lack sophistication, they make up for it in murderous intent toward Shias. They have killed thousands of Shias in Pakistan over the last 15 years and have been banned by the Pakistani government. Their goal is to establish a Sunni state in Pakistan. And despite past ties to the ISI, the Pakistani government insists that they are as much an enemy of Pakistan as they are of Afghanistan. Pakistan’s own problems with sectarian strife explode regularly, and the LeJ is usually a primary cause of the violence. This doesn’t mean that the ISI wouldn’t attempt to re-establish a connection with the LeJ — especially if they thought the terrorists could serve their ultimate goal of controlling the post-NATO environment in Afghanistan.

Another possible culprit is the Haqqani Network which also has ties with the Pakistani ISI and is known to have carried out quite complex operations, such as the attack on the US embassy a few months ago. With the Afghan Taliban denying responsibility, suspicion falls on the Haqqani –  perhaps the most effective terror network in Afghanistan.

What is the ISI’s game? And why now? Clearly, if one were to desire a sectarian conflict, the opportunity of striking on the Shia’s holiest day when thousands of pilgrims are on the move answers the second question. As for why the ISI would unleash Haqqani — or any other terrorist group — to foment religious strife, the answer has to do with Pakistan’s problem of how to influence a post-NATO Afghanistan so that the composition of a future government proves malleable enough for them to dominate.

The Hazaras support the government of Hamid Karzai. A sectarian conflict would weaken those ties and create chaos, turning a bad security situation into an impossible one for the Afghan government. As BBC Afghanistan editor Waheed Massoud suggests:

Analysts believe the regional players of old still have a stake in Afghanistan’s instability. Unity between Shias and Sunnis, and unity between ethnic groups and between political factions leaves no room for Iran or Pakistan to wield influence.

Many analysts here believe that Pakistan in particular has come under increasing international pressure for sheltering militants on its soil, and particularly the leadership of the Afghan Taliban.

If  it is Pakistan, they have covered their tracks well. If it was the LeJ, why they felt they had to cross the border into Afghanistan to kill Shias is a mystery. They’ve got plenty of targets on the Pakistan side.

That’s why I believe those analysts who say it was Haqqani that carried out the attack. They may have done so at the behest of either Pakistan or the Taliban, but the coordination and complexity of the attack would seem to point the finger at the most effective terrorist group operating in Afghanistan.

If the attack does set off a sectarian conflict, will Obama keep American soldiers in country? If he’s smart, he won’t. Abandoning Afghanistan to the Taliban and Pakistan will keep them both occupied for years. They deserve all the misery that will befall them if they are stuck having to tamp down sectarian violence that they initiated in the first place.

The RINO Hour of Power is back on the air — with a vengance. One of the most popular conservative talk shows on Blog Talk Radio is ready to put the pedal to the metal and give you one hour of high octane conversation and scintillating repartee from those rough and ready RINO’s Jazz Shaw and Rick Moran.

This week, we welcome Kerry Pickett, writer/editor at the Washington Times and the blog The Water Cooler. We’ll discuss the decision to have Donald Trump moderate the upcoming GOP debate and other hot issues making news today.

We stream live from 8:00 - 9:00 pm eastern time. You can access the live stream here, or click the icon below. A podcast will be available shortly after the end of the show.

The poor, confused, addle-brained numbskull:

Frank La Rue, who serves as the U.N. “special rapporteur” for the protection of free expression, told HuffPost in an interview that the crackdowns against Occupy protesters appear to be violating their human and constitutional rights.

“I believe in city ordinances and I believe in maintaining urban order,” he said Thursday. “But on the other hand I also believe that the state — in this case the federal state — has an obligation to protect and promote human rights.”

“If I were going to pit a city ordinance against human rights, I would always take human rights,” he continued.

La Rue, a longtime Guatemalan human rights activist who has held his U.N. post for three years, said it’s clear to him that the protesters have a right to occupy public spaces “as long as that doesn’t severely affect the rights of others.”

In moments of crisis, governments often default to a forceful response instead of a dialogue, he said — but that’s a mistake.

“Citizens have the right to dissent with the authorities, and there’s no need to use public force to silence that dissension,” he said.

How does this jamoke define “severely affect the rights of others?” Rapes, assaults, unsanitary conditions that could lead to an outbreak of contagious disease, cities being forced to use precious police resources to patrol lawless encampments while allowing other neighborhoods to suffer with increased crime –

I’d say that’s a great, big “yes.”

“I believe in city ordinances and I believe in maintaining urban order…” Perhaps he should also believe in the US Constitution which prohibits federal authorities from intruding in what by any stretch of the imagination is a wholly local matter. Talk about jackboots in the streets - just think what this brainless twit would be saying if the National Guard were “protecting” the rights of the protesters? He’s probably be trying to get the Securty Council to enforce our “Responsibility to Protect.”

And how about this for a false analogy from another mindless observer, Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, co-chair of a National Lawyers Guild committee, who echoes the beliefs of many OWS supporters:

Using the same lens placed on the Occupy movement to look at, say, the protest in Egypt, Verheyden-Hilliard said, observers would have focused on such issues as “Did the people in Tahrir Square have a permit?”

To compare the undemocratic, dictatorial, oppressive Mubarak regime with American democracy is beyond belief. The Tahrir Square protestors- tens of thousands of them compared to the paltry few hundred who turned out for the OWS occuping - had no democratic alternative to permits. The OWS protestors have gone to court - a separate but equal branch of government - to plead their case. The fact that the courts sided with the reasonable requests of city officials that their central cities not be turned into crime and rat infested fetid swamps of human waste, garbage, filthy and lice ridden protestors should be a sign to any objective observer that “human rights” of the demonstrators were infringing on the rights of other residents in the city - to the severe detriment of public health and public order.

Besides, what exactly are these cities - the overwhelming majority of them run by politicians who openly sympathize with the protestors and their stated goals - doing to accomodate the demonstrators? They are saying they can come back during the day and protest to their heart’s content, fully exercising their constitutional right of free speech. The only restriction is that they can’t camp out and create chaotic and unsanitary conditions under which the city must expend enormous and scarce resources to accomodate them.

Did the protestors in Tahrir Square get that kind of welcoming alternative? Did the Tahrir Square protestors have dozens of police patrolling the periphery of their encampment to guard against attacks on women, on property, and prevent other crimes? Did Cairo city officials praise the protestors and give city employees time off to attend their rallies? Did the Tahrir Square protestors get free porto-johns, free hook ups to the electrical grid, free gourmet food, free wifi, and other amenities that other groups who might wish to protest - the Tea Party for instance - would have to pay for? It is certainly a novel idea that cities should be required to spend millions of dollars on protestors to ensure their comfort and facilitiate their agenda.

The notion that there is any commonality between the OWS protestors and demonstrators in Tahrir Square is not only counterintuitive, but an insult to rational thought.

But really, La Rue doesn’t even try to hide his political agenda:

La Rue said the protesters are raising and addressing a fundamental issue. “There is legitimate reason to be indignant and angry about a crisis that was originated by greed and the personal interests of certain sectors,” he said. That’s especially the case when the bankers “still earn very hefty salaries and common folks are losing their homes.”

“In this case, the demonstrations are going to the center of the issue,” he said. “These demonstrations are exactly challenging the basis of the debate.”

So because he agrees with them, the OWS crew should be allowed to thumb their nose at the law? This is another novel construct with regard to “human rights.” Objective truth does not recognize ideological arguments, but rather the reasonable weighing of public and private interests to arrive at a logical conclusion. Logic escapes most OWS supporters. It certainly has nothing to do with La Rue’s efforts to condemn the national government for not interceding in local efforts to maintain order and protect the lives and property of all citizens - not just those granted privileged status for their noble ideas.

UPDATE”

This just in - another telling comparison between OWS and Tahrir Square…NOT:

A Suffolk Superior Court judge says Occupy Boston protesters can stay in an encampment on Dewey Square until Dec. 15.

After a four-hour hearing, Suffolk Superior Court Judge Frances McIntyre took both sides’ arguments under advisement and said she would issue a ruling in two weeks time. Until then, she said, an injunction that bars the city from booting the protesters remains in place.

The protesters called the decision a “victory.”

What Egyptian court did the Tahrir Square protestors file their injunction? Oh, wait…

The RINO Hour of Power is back on the air — with a vengance. One of the most popular conservative talk shows on Blog Talk Radio is ready to put the pedal to the metal and give you one hour of high octane conversation and scintillating repartee from those rough and ready RINO’s Jazz Shaw and Rick Moran.

This week, we welcome our friend Jeff Kropf, host of the morning Jeff Kropf show on KUIK in Portland, Oregon. Jeff is a leader of the Tea Party and a former state senator. We’ll talk some presidential politics and take a look at what some are saying is the end of the old Democratic New Deal coalition and what might be replacing it.

We stream live from 8:00 - 9:00 pm eastern time. You can access the live stream here, or click the icon below. A podcast will be available shortly after the end of the show.

The RINO Hour of Power is back on the air — with a vengance. One of the most popular conservative talk shows on Blog Talk Radio is ready to put the pedal to the metal and give you one hour of high octane conversation and scintillating repartee from those rough and ready RINO’s Jazz Shaw and Rick Moran.

Tonight’s guest is Andrew Malcolm of Investors Business Daily. The guys will discuss Newt Gingrich’s immigration position as well as other hot topics making news.

We stream live from 8:00 - 9:00 pm eastern time. You can access the live stream here, or click the icon below. A podcast will be available shortly after the end of the show.

It is not looking good for peace in Syria at the moment. Not only is Assad ignoring the Arab League’s overtures for peace, but a sectarian war has broken out in Homs between the Alawites and Sunnis. And the military defectors based in Turkey - the “Free Syrian Army” is beginning to flex its muscles with an attack on Baath party headquarters in Damascus on Saturday.

My FPM article from this morning:

This has been the nightmare of the secularists in the opposition since the uprising began; that the boiling kettle of differing sects and religions in Syria might overflow and turn into a conflict - not to get rid of Assad, but to kill their religious enemies. This is evident in the city of Homs where the small Alawite community has been carrying out tit-for-tat murders of Sunnis who have been returning the favor.

The violence is close to being out of control as many residents of both Islamic sects fear for their lives if they venture outdoors. One resident told the New York Times that “There are shabeeha on both sides now” - referring to the black clad militia that is the spearhead of Assad’s crackdown on civilians. The Times describes a harrowing situation, with “beheadings, rival gangs carrying out tit-for-tat kidnappings, minorities fleeing for their native villages, and taxi drivers too fearful of drive-by shootings to ply the streets.” Both sides blame the government for encouraging the sectarian violence, but the bitter rivals hardly need a push from anyone to kill each other.

This is what a real civil war in Syria could look like: minorities like the Christians, the Druze, the Shias, and the small but dominant Alawite sect, fearing a Sunni takeover (Sunnis make up 75% of the population), would largely look to Assad’s regime to protect them, while some of those minorities and the Sunnis would seek to overthrow the regime. The conflict would quickly degenerate into a bloodbath similar to what was witnessed in Iraq during the violence after Saddam’s overthrow.

This scenario is becoming more likely because of the inability of the Syrian National Council to agree on an agenda that would lead to Assad’s departure. The more the opposition dithers and is unable to unite the various factions, including the groups of young people who have been on the front lines of the revolt, the less likely it is that sectarian tensions can be kept under wraps.

There is also the question of maintaining a peaceful character to the revolution. Most of the younger activists don’t want anything to do with the Free Syrian Army while the SNC wants to maintain an arms length relationship with the defectors. The SNC argues that embracing the FSA will make it harder for other soldiers to defect. “[T]he others [soldiers] in the army are our sons too,” said one SNC member.

The Arab League, the international community, and Syria’s neighbors are scrambling to come up with a formula that will force Bashar Assad from office and avoid an even larger bloodbath than the carnage being visited upon the Syrian people by the military forces of the Syrian president. With tens of thousands of prisoners being held without charge, and at least 3,500 dead, time appears to be running out for a happy ending to the human rights tragedy currently unfolding in Syria.

The RINO Hour of Power is back on the air — with a vengance. One of the most popular conservative talk shows on Blog Talk Radio is ready to put the pedal to the metal and give you one hour of high octane conversation and scintillating repartee from those rough and ready RINO’s Jazz Shaw and Rick Moran.

Tonight’s guest is GOP presidential candidate, former House member and former governor of Louisiana Buddy Roemer. Expect lots of insights into the race as well as a good discussion of the issues.

We stream live from 8:00 - 9:00 pm eastern time. You can access the live stream here, or click the icon below. A podcast will be available shortly after the end of the show.

This post originally appeared in March of 2007 when Gingrich was contemplating getting into the 2008 race. I thought it would be a good idea, given Newt’s recent surge upwards in the polls, to remind us all why Gingrich would be slaughtered in any one on one presidential contest and why if he did happened to get elected, why his presidency would be a disaster.

* * * * * * * * * *

I must confess to having a great admiration for the oratorical and intellectual gifts of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. No doubt about it, Newt is an “idea man” - suffused with a passion and curiosity about government, about the world around him to the point that ideas pour forth from his supple and inquisitive mind in a rapid fire fashion reminiscent of the staccato bursts from a machine gun.

Let me make clear that Newt doesn’t do nuance. The dirty details of how to put his ideas into actionable form he leaves to others while he moves on to the next challenge. A former staff member explains:

A former aide, Ladonna Lee, said “He would always get people started on a project or a vision, and we’re all slugging up the mountain to accomplish it. Newt’s nowhere to be found…He’s gone on to the next mountaintop.”

Former Congressman and personal friend Vin Weber said pretty much the same thing:

“I never saw a lot of crackpot ideas. I saw a lot of good ideas. But there was difficulty in assessing a cost-benefit ratio. Even if every idea is good, resources are limited. With Newt, it didn’t matter if we were overreaching, we had to do everything.”

This is basically why nearly two years ago I wrote a piece entitled “Please Don’t Run, Newt.” Gingrich is a man whose calling is probably in the classroom or perhaps as a back bench legislator. Because what becomes clear after listening to one of his jaw-dropping presentations where ideas flow like the riffs created by a good blues guitarist, seamlessly moving from topic to topic with a breathtaking rhetorical ease, is that Newt is not executive material. In fact, he would be a disaster - a coherent Carter where his Administration would start down one road only to be sidetracked as President Gingrich discovered some other shiny intellectual bauble that would distract him from his course and doom his initiative.

And then, there’s his personal baggage.

Like many of the great conceptualizers, Gingrich sees his own personal morality as a fluidic creation. He is able to rationalize many of his foibles as sacrifices to the cause. That’s right; Gingrich, as many before him, see straying from the straight and narrow as just one of the burdens he must bear in order for him to give the world the benefit of his ideas and intellect.

No where is that more clear than in this interview he did with the TV evangelist James Dobson where the former Speaker and Clinton nemesis reveals that he had an extra-marital affair at the time he was pursuing the impeachment of the President:

“The president of the United States got in trouble for committing a felony in front of a sitting federal judge,” the former Georgia congressman said of Clinton’s 1998 House impeachment on perjury and obstruction of justice charges. “I drew a line in my mind that said, ‘Even though I run the risk of being deeply embarrassed, and even though at a purely personal level I am not rendering judgment on another human being, as a leader of the government trying to uphold the rule of law, I have no choice except to move forward and say that you cannot accept … perjury in your highest officials.”

Suffering for the greater good of impeaching Clinton while enjoying the ill gotten fruits of a relationship outside of his marriage? I don’t know any other way to read that except that Gingirch feels himself a victim of his own moral failings. Drawing a line in one’s mind between public and private morality is not new in politics. But to basically be accusing someone of doing so and then enjoying the advantages yourself of such moral schizophrenia is almost beyond belief.

Michelle Malkin:

We are all, as I said earlier today, fallible people. And conservatives are willing to forgive. Whether they’ll buy into Gingrich as the best standard-bearer for the party and most deserving candidate for commander-in-chief–as opposed to anything more than the quick-thinking debater, cable TV guest, and lecturer that he now is–is another matter.

Indeed, as Malkin shows, Gingrich has negative vs. positive ratings that make Hillary look positively unbeatable:

Part of that is almost certainly the fact that people remember Gingrich as one of the most polarizing political figures in recent memory. And it also could be due to a list of ethical lapses that call into question his fitness for any office, high or otherwise:

1. Bouncing 22 checks in the House Banking scandal.

2. A 1984 book deal backed by campaign contributors and put together in his district office using taxpayer money.

3. Financial irregularities with Gingrich’s personal Political Action Committee GOPAC.

4. Use of tax exempt groups (the Abraham Lincoln Opportunity Foundation for one) to fund a TV program on grassroots political activism.

5. A multi-million dollar advance for a book deal with Rupert Murdoch that gave rise to charges of hypocrisy on Gingrich’s part because it was the same thing he accused ousted Democratic House Speaker Jim Wright of doing.

And the story of his divorce from his first wife - where the Congressman filed for the split while his wife was lying in a hospital bed battling cancer:

After the separation in 1980, she had to be operated on again, to remove another tumor While she was still in the hospital, according to [Lee] Howell (former press secretary), “Newt came up there with his yellow legal pad, and he had a list of things on how the divorce was going to be handled. He wanted her to sign it. She was still recovering from surgery, still sort of out of it, and he comes in with a yellow sheet of paper, handwritten, and wants her to sign it.

No. I can forgive many peccadilloes in a man both personal and political. But that doesn’t mean I think he would make a good president. And in Newt’s case, his curious sense of personal morality along with his inability to stay focused on one goal at a time would doom his candidacy in the general election and doom his presidency even if he were to be elected.

I think this latest revelation means that he has resigned himself to not running for president in 2008. Only overarching hubris would allow him to think that he could not only win the nomination but get himself elected. And I think all Republicans should breathe a sigh of relief if this is so.

UPDATE

Ed Morrissey has it about right:

Gingrich didn’t commit perjury. However, Gingrich had the affair with his staffer at the same time he pursued Clinton’s impeachment for perjuring himself about sex with an intern. Given that Republicans made a great deal of noise about Clinton’s sexual escapades with an employee/volunteer in the Oval Office itself, that comparison is not completely apples to oranges.

Especially when the left will ignore - as they always have - the perjury of Clinton and concentrate on the sexcapades. It was one of the more successful PR operations in the last decade to formulate The Narrative that demonized Starr, accused Republicans of hypocrisy for their failings in staying true to their wives, while completely obfuscating the base charges against Clinton.

Brilliant work.

As far as international, multi-lateral organizations go, the Arab League has always been something of a joke — and that’s saying a lot considering their competition.

But give the clowns their due; they finally bestirred themselves after 8 months of slaughter in Syria and suspended the Assad regime and recalled their ambassadors. For the past several months, they have done their best to avoid addressing the violence in Syria, Yemen, and Bahrain while making pious pronouncements about “democracy” and pluralism.

Considering no Arab League states come close to practicing those beliefs in reality, their calls to end the violence were more hollow and ridiculous than usual. But little Qatar and the Saudis see the prospect of regional instability if Syria were to descend into civil war — a likely prospect now that there are thousands of armed army deserters who are taking sides against the regime — and they prodded the League to vote Syria’s suspension.

My FPM article today addresses the Syrian response to the League’s actions:

“You Arab leaders are the tails of Obama,” read a banner unfurled during the Damascus protest. Indeed, that has been the government line since the suspension was announced late last week. The Al-Thawra (revolution) newspaper was quoted as saying that the suspension and withdrawal of ambassadors was “almost identical to and a copy of U.S. instructions.” Al-Watan referred to the Arab League as the “Hebrew League” while the official news agency SANA quoted a prominent politician who said the suspension was tantamount to “declaring war” against Syria.

It is widely believed that Assad has called for the emergency Arab summit to stall for time - a luxury he no longer has. The only three member states to vote against Syria’s suspension were Iraq, Yemen, and Lebanon, all for varying reasons. Iraq fears a Sunni enemy on its borders if Assad is overthrown or otherwise departs. Yemen, suffering through its own version of the “Arab Spring,” fears similar action by the Arab League against President Saleh who, despite promising four times to leave office, hangs on to power while his country falls into civil war. And Lebanon has become a puppet of Syria since Hezbollah took over the government last spring.

But what must worry Assad the most is the loss of his good friend and ally, Prime Minister Erdogan of Turkey. Turkey has been slow off the mark in punishing Assad for the brutal crackdown but Erdogan has finally come to the conclusion that Assad has to go. Erdogan had promised sanctions last month but events intervened to prevent their announcement - including an attack on Kurdish terrorists in Iraq and a devastating earthquake that demanded his attention.

But the Wall Street Journal reports that even though Erdogan has been cautious in moving toward full opposition to the Assad regime, Turkey now sees Assad as an impediment to its hegemonistic designs in the Middle East. The newspaper quotes Ilter Turan, a professor of international relations at Istanbul’s Bilgi University, who said, “As long as Assad is there, the road for Iran to extend its influence through the Middle East and the Mediterranean is open.” With both nations vying for power and influence in the region, knocking his former friend off his throne would mean that any new regime in Syria would almost certainly be less friendly to Tehran.

Three quarters of the Syrian population is Sunni Muslim and it is thought that even a pluralistic, secular government as a successor to Assad would pull back from aligning itself too closely with Shia Iran. The chances of that kind of government emerging from post-Assad Syria are exceedingly slim, however. Nowhere else in the Arab world has the “Arab Spring” led to any government except an Islamist one. And just recently, the Syrian opposition hosted Muslim Brotherhood cleric Sheikh Yousef al-Qaradawi in Qatar. Allowing the resurrection of the Muslim Brotherhood - nearly destroyed by Assad’s father Hafez in a series of brutal massacres during the 1980s - is a dangerous sign for the mostly idealistic secularists on the Syrian National Council.