Bashing Bassar al-Assad

Over at the Wall Street Journal, Reason Contributing Editor Michael Young--the editorial page chief at Lebanon's Daily Star--lays out the dilemma of the Syrian strongman who suddenly isn't as strong as he used to be:

Expectations of a liberal opening have been neutralized by the president's need to consolidate his authority. This is Mr. Assad's dilemma: to effect economic and political reform he needs more power; but in accumulating power, he becomes more of an autocrat.

Whole thing here.