“Hobson’s Choice:
1 an apparently free choice when there is no real alternative
2 the necessity of accepting one of two or more equally objectionable alternatives “

“Besides, the rebels are losing support, in part because the regime has had some success in stirring sectarian fears. Many Syrians originally sympathetic to the rebels have been horrified by events such as the reported execution on June 9th of a 14-year-old boy by jihadists in Aleppo, allegedly for insulting the Prophet Muhammad. Downtrodden Sunnis who six months ago were the mainstay of the opposition may be thinking again. “I hate the regime,” says a woman from a poor Damascus suburb. “But if forced to choose, perhaps I would rather live under them than the rebels. I am tired of the violence.” Qatari and Saudi support for the opposition has also scared a lot of Syrians. “This is now a war in Syria, but not a Syrian war,” says a dissident artist in the capital. “I have no illusions that the Gulf backers are interested in us having democracy.”…..……….”

Also sprach The Economist. The excellent magazine’s record is not perfect. It has a past record of some quality mis-prognostications about the Middle East (Iranian Revolution, Iran-Iraq War, Battle for Basrah, Syria, Lebanon, etc, etc………). Probably not this time: it covers an aspect of the Syrian civil war that is ignored by most Western media, nay an aspect that many in the West and many Arabs would consider heresy. The choices facing the Syrians are tough.

Syrians are caught between several clichés: a rock and a hard place, the frying pan and the fire, you name it. Like most Arab peoples, they have a plethora of bad choices among clichés, to pick from. The last word up there, by a skeptical Syrian citizen, got it right: “I have no illusions that the Gulf backers are interested in us having democracy.”
In Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the financiers of Syrian ‘liberation’, states that are seemingly gung-ho on Syrian “freedom”, the people have no such choices, not even between bad alternatives. Their own peoples don’t even have a lousy Hobson’s Choice.

Cheers
mhg