Sign up for the Washington Monthly Newsletter! Get the Washington Monthly newsletter in your inbox twice weekly for free, plus a roundup of our best policy analysis every Saturday. Yes, I would like to receive emails from Washington Monthly. You can unsubscribe anytime. A dozen men climbed single file up a steep slope covered in shale.
Each footfall sent down a stream of rocks. They were Syrians, going home to join the armed uprising. The Lebanese border town below was hazy in the dusk, and from it the wind carried a distant pop: the Ramadan cannon, fired to tell the people they could eat. It was the first night of the holy month of fasting, prayerβand battle.
We had heard talk of a big rebel offensive during Ramadan. Ramadan was a good time to fight, people said: Ramadan would see the end of the regime. I fell into step with a skinny kid wearing glasses, called Ali. He was eighteen and was supposed to be in Jordan, where his parents had sent him to avoid the war. They thought he was still there, studying computer science.
This was August , the second summer of a war now in its sixth year. As a journalist, I explained the war as the outcome of countless individual choices made by Syrians like Ali. That is only half the story. After six years of war, it is an important book. As Phillips says, these countries are stained with Syrian blood. Phillips spoke to officials from all six countries but also relied on news reports and other secondary sources.
But this is a remarkably clear account of the real motives behind the blizzard of propaganda enveloping Syria. There are no revelations, but the story is still able to surprise.
