President Bashar al-Assad of Syria suffered a devastating blow on Wednesday with the killing in Damascus of three leading figures in his regime. The deaths – which included that of the Syrian defence minister – do not mean his regime is yet finished. Mr Assad still retains huge firepower to deploy against rebels who have…
“No one here [in Washington] thinks the Annan plan is going to work,” says Andrew Tabler, a Syria expert with The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “This plan does not deal with the disease itself. The disease is very simple. You have a minority-dominated regime that is not about to give up power, that…