What Kind of People are the Syrian Opposition?

Michael Weiss:

The Henry Jackson Society, the London-based foreign-policy think tank where I work, has spent the last several weeks investigating the Syrian opposition and talking to key figures in six major cities in upheaval. The evidence suggests that this revolution is the most liberal and Western-friendly of any of the Arab Spring uprisings. That it’s also the least supported by the West is a tragedy.

I think the importance of the west’s support for Arab revolutions is overblown. The Egyptian revolution succeeded despite the fact that almost all players wanted Mubarak to stay. All the west does is adapt to the power balance on the ground (a honorable exception is France who, stung by it’s Tunisia inaction became proactive and started siding with the revolutionaries almost as soon as they started their revolts)