By Emma Sky
Best Defense roving Middle East correspondent  

Is this your first visit to Syria, the passport-control man asks me. No, I tell him, I came here once before over a decade ago. He stamps my passport. I had been very lucky to get a Syrian visa this time. The travel advice was not to visit. The Syrian regime is very wary of foreigners, fearing that journalists and spies are inflaming the situation further. I collect my bag and walk through customs, passing a poster, of modest size, of President Bashar al-Assad with the words in Arabic proclaiming: "Leader of the youth, hope of the youth."

I jump in a taxi. I ask the driver how are things in Syria. Things are fine, he assures me. There has been some trouble around the country, but things are OK in Damascus. As we drive, we chat. He points out the area where Druze live. With his hand, he waves in another direction to where Palestinian refugees live, and then again to where Iraqi refugees live. Alawites are over there and in villages. Christians this way and in villages. Sunnis are around 65 percent of the population. Kurds live in the north. Many different peoples live in Syria. I ask him how he knows who someone is or whether they are Sunni or Shiite. He tells me that he does not know and it does not interest him to know: There is no sectarianism here in Syria. We pass Damascus University. Outside there are lots of flags and pictures of Assad and his deceased father. Across the city, the Syrian flag is flying strong and photos of the president are omnipresent. As I ride through al-Umawiyeen Square, I see lots of young men and women gathering, holding Syrian flags. It is not a demonstration, a Syrian tells me; it is a celebration -- a celebration of the regime. Later, I watch the event on television. It has made the international news. Tens of thousands of Syrians have come out to al-Umawiyeen Square to show their support for President Bashar al-Assad in a lively celebration that includes pop singers and fireworks.

When I had visited previously, the city had been filled with huge pictures of Hafez al-Assad; and Bashar, his son, had been studying ophthalmology in London. The death of Bashar's elder brother, Basil, in a car crash, propelled him back into the family business of ruling Syria.

In the evening, I stroll down the street to a restaurant. It is very modern and Western. All-you-can-eat sushi for $20. I try to read my emails on my BlackBerry. I switch between two different networks, but can only receive GPS, not GPRS. The restaurant claims to have Wi-Fi. I ask the waiter. There is Wi-Fi, he tells me, but it is not working at the moment. Nor is Facebook. Internet access is limited.

I walk through Souq al-Hamidiyah in the old city of Damascus. It is a wide, pedestrianized street, two-stories high, and covered. It is buzzing with life. Store owners sit outside their shops, trying to entice potential customers. Traders sell their wares down the middle of the street. Walking with the flow of people, I emerge to find the Umayyad Mosque directly in front of me.

I go to the ticket office, pay the entrance fee for foreigners, and collect a hooded gray cloak to cover myself. The cloaks come in three sizes. A woman sitting there directs me toward the smallest size. The cloak stinks, and I wonder when it was last washed and how many women have had to wear it in the sweltering summer heat. I put the cloak on over my clothes, pulling up the pointed hood to ensure my hair is covered. I enter the Umayyad Mosque -- built on the site of a shrine dedicated to John the Baptist -- looking like a member of the Ku Klux Klan except dressed in gray, and carrying my shoes in my hand. I wander into the covered area where hundreds of people are praying, men in one area, women in another. I walk out to the courtyard. In one area, a group is seated on the ground. One man is kneeling, raising his arms, weeping "ya Hussein." The others follow suit, tears flowing, looking quite distraught.

The rest of this article can be read in its entirety: here.

I was reading a detailed, thoughtful survey of Yemeni public opinion conducted by Glevum Associates, and was struck that Osama bin Laden is more popular with older Yemenis than with the youths. He is rated favorably by just 3 percent of the 15 to 25 year olds but by 17 percent of the 31 to 40 year olds.

On the downside, Yemenis are close to unanimous (99 percent) that the United States is a baleful cultural influence on the world. Indeed, they are a bit more irked by American culture than they are by American economic and military power. Almost as many (96 percent) think the West is at war with Islam. Those of youse who are tempted to agree should keep in mind Krepinevich's law of the disaggregation of enemies: Never have any more than you really need to.

Here is a conversation with my officemate, Robert Kaplan, who has written a lot of interesting books, and has a new one out today, titled Monsoon: The Indian Ocean and the Future of American Power, about the growing political importance of the Indian Ocean basin.

If after reading this you want more, come on down the evening of Nov. 9 to his CNAS book rollout, hear him talk, buy a book, and get it signed. And if you mention "Best Defense" Bob might give you a free beer. Register here.

Best Defense: What made you turn to the Indian Ocean as a book subject?

Robert Kaplan: In 2006, I saw a few references to the Indian Ocean in military journals. So I did what I always do when hunting for a new project, I consulted an atlas. As I stared at the map, the book began to emerge in my mind: Here was the entire arc of Islam from the Sahara Desert to the Indonesian archipelago. Here was the global energy interstate, through whose waters pass the hydrocarbons from the Middle East to the middle class cities of East Asia. Here was a vehicle to get beyond Islam as strictly a phenomenon of Middle Eastern deserts and take in its green, tropical allure in the Far Eastern seas as well. Here was a way to connect the issues of Islam and China in one book. Another influence upon me was the teaching post I had at the time at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, where I met colleagues who had experience on warships in these waters, and they told me their stories.

BD: What do you think will be the biggest surprise in the book for readers of this blog?

RK: This blog has tended to concentrate, as it should, on the wars of the moment, in Iraq and Afghanistan, messy land wars where counterinsurgency is a doctrine that the U.S. military is pursuing. This book takes military issues beyond those of the day, and suggests a future where our challenges may be primarily maritime. China and its naval rise, and the possible threat it poses to the Indian Ocean and adjacent South China Sea, figure prominently in this book, while Iraq and Afghanistan figure barely at all. Central Asia figures, though, because it will one day be linked by roads and energy pipelines to the Indian Ocean. Pakistan figures heavily, but here, too, I concentrate on what the media has generally ignored: the restive provinces of Baluchistan and Sindh on the Indian Ocean. The surprise of this book is that future wars and conflicts may be vastly different than the ones of the moment. Instead of fighting neighborhood by neighborhood in Baghdad or Kandahar, we may in the future have to influence vast spaces on the map through naval maneuvers.

BD: Some of your previous books have had dark scenarios and descriptions. Is this book also pessimistic?

RK: No. This is my most optimistic and -- hopefully, that is -- nuanced work. Of course, the reader will be the judge of that! The interweaving of civilizations in the Indian Ocean is incredibly complex, and it was a real struggle for me to adequately communicate it. It was certainly the hardest book I ever wrote -- the book where I did more reading and research than any previously. As I get older, writing just gets more difficult and complicated. I did not set out to be an optimist. But my conclusion is that the Greater Indian Ocean is evolving into a vibrant, multipolar trading system reminiscent of the Muslim and Chinese trading systems that preceded Vasco da Gama in these waters. And for the United States to maintain its power it will have to listen more to the yearnings of hundreds of millions, Muslims and non-Muslims alike, who are not concerned with al-Qaeda, but with attaining a middle class standard of living. If you want to hear the authentic voice of the emerging, former third world, watch Al Jazeera, and maybe dip into my book.

BD: What do you think you will write about next, and why?

RK: I have started writing a book about geography, about the great geographers of the past and how to incorporate their sensibilities in order to approach places like Russia, China, Iran, and Turkey in hopefully a new and original light. Whereas, Monsoon involved enormous traveling, this next book involves endless reading. I don't believe we have overcome geography, despite the jet and information age. The Hindu Kush, the Tibetan and Iranian plateaus, and the riverine wastes of Siberia, to name a few examples, still matter to international politics, as they deeply affect the behavior of nations. As Napoleon said, if you want to know a nation's foreign policy, inspect its geography. That's what I am now trying to do.

This exchange from a Senate hearing yesterday about how and why the Army dropped the ball on the Fort Hood shooter is worth reading:

Sen. Lieberman: . . . . General Keane, do you -- and obviously this is speculation but the military is most sensitive of any organization I know to any taint or allegation or impression of being discriminatory which is appropriate. Do you think that political correctness may have played some role in the fact that these dots were not connected?

Gen. Keane: Yes, absolutely and also I think a factor here is Hasan's position as an officer and also his position as a psychiatrist contributed to that because of the special category I think someone who's operating as a clinician every day treating patients is in in the military. It's an individual activity versus a group activity which provides considerably more supervision in squads, platoons, companies and the like inside our units.

So there's no doubt in my mind that that was operating here. But in fairness to many of the people who are associating with him, based on what preliminary research I have done and I think what the committee is doing, I think we're going to find very clearly that we do not have specific guidelines on dealing with Jihadist extremism in terms of the obligations of the members of the military to identify a reported and what actions to take and what constitutes Jihadist extremists itself.

So that you take some of this burden away from people by having those guidelines and when you have those guidelines in place you are clearly saying to the institution that this is important to us, we are not going to tolerate this kind of behavior and we want to identify with immediately to try to curb the behavior through counseling and rehabilitation and if necessary separate that individual from the service if it cannot be curbed.

Sen. McCain: I have talked to military officers who have stated that they at least up until now have had a significant reluctance to pursue what may be these indications because of this political correctness environment. Have you heard the same?

Gen. Keane: Well I know it exists, no doubt about it, and what I'm trying to say is is that the way to deal with that -- it shouldn't have to be an act of moral courage on behalf of a soldier to have to report behavior that we should not be tolerating inside our military organizations. It should be an obligation. The way to make that an obligation is provide very specific guidelines through the chain of command as to what their duties are in regards to this issue. That takes this issue -- begins to take this issue off the table because the institution is speaking clearly in terms of what its expectations are and what it will tolerate and what it will not tolerate.

Sen. McCain: And perhaps err on the side of caution instead of erring on the side of correctness.

I think General Keane is pointing to a good way to help soldiers, and help the Army, akin to what Stu Herrington was talking about the other day in this blog.   

RoE warning: Look, I know the three people quoted above are not Democratic Party favorites. Even so, I don't want to see a bunch of ad hominem attacks on Keane, McCain and Lieberman. If you want to do that, take it outside to another blog. This is a sensitive, difficult subject. It is easy to rant about this. But that is not what we need. I don't want name calling, I want to think about solutions here, as Keane does. ‘Nuff said?

Will Palmer/Flickr

Get this: Iran's Revolutionary Guards are angry at Pakistan for arresting and then quickly releasing a leader of the anti-Tehran Sunni rebels, Dawn of Pakistan reports. 

Some 42 people died last month in a bombing the rebel group claimed to have perpetrated. "How is it possible that this guy can move freely [unless he is] under the protection of the intelligence services?" righteously inquires the  most honorable Brigadier General Hossein Salami, the no. 2 guy in the Guards. (What's the no. 3 guy, Col. Pepperoni?)

It is a little odd to see both the United States and Iran cranky with Pakistan over related issues of harboring bad actors. Maybe Washington, Tehran and Delhi can form an anti-ISI alliance? I admit to just sitting back and enjoying this. OK, I feel a twinge of guilt. But just a twinge. 

upturnedface/Flickr

One of the most interesting sub-genres of journalism is the article reporters write as they leave a country or beat. Often, they vent feelings and views they've kept pent-up for year.

Here is a classic of the type. As she leaves Iraq, Alissa Rubin of the New York Times summarizes the harsh lessons she learned from years of living in Baghdad:

. . . Army checkpoints -- legal ones -- are the only ones that stop you, but huge posters of Imam Ali punctuate the streets, a signal that this is now Shiite-land. Imam Ali is revered as a founder of the Shiite branch of Islam, but a poster of him is also a silent rebuke to Sunnis, a way of marking territory, of reminding them that the Shiites run things now. It is a sign of victory as much as peace.

And victory in Iraq almost always begets revenge.

In my five years in Iraq, all that I wanted to believe in was gunned down. Sunnis and Shiites each committed horrific crimes, and the Kurds, whose modern-looking cities and Western ways seemed at first so familiar, turned out to be capable of their own brutality."

I think this is a good prism through which to view Iraq's upcoming national elections.

Photo: ALI YESSEF/AFP/Getty Images