It's very easy to start a war but the muftah, as the Arabs say, the key to switch off a war, is very difficult to find.

In one way, I fear all Damascus is a dungeon. Or do you have to live here to appreciate that?

Colleagues will malign you if you're a moderately successful journalist.

Why is it that we go to immense lengths getting the Serbs who were responsible for the massacre of 7,000 at Srbrenica-that's slightly more than the total figure for New York 9/11-and we take them to a tribunal in The Hague, and one after another, we arraign them, try them, convict them, and punish them in front of the world, but no plans have been brought forward to get Osama bin Laden and his friends and put them on trial.

Israel lost its war. Will Assad's enemies lose, too?

Even my landlord, who is a moderate Lebanese guy, says, "But bin Laden says what we think." These people believe that bin Laden is being targeted not because of the World Trade Center and Washington; they are not convinced by the evidence that has been produced. They believe he's being targeted because he tells the truth.

The Syrian army is tired of corruption. It is tired of party nepotism. It is becoming very angry with those it blames for the war.