has been a kind of supranational institution, above anything as vulgar as the competition for power. But now it has lost its mystique: The president is a lonely man who dares not venture beyond his palace in the outskirts of a besieged capital.

Syria’s history since independence in 1947 shows that whenever a ruler calls in the army to crush the street, he ends up the loser. It happened three times in 1949 alone, when the army staged three coups, each time after being ordered to crush the street.

Brig.-Gen. Hosni al-Zaim, arguably the most colorful Syrian dictator, tried to turn himself into a civilian ruler but failed. Adib Shishakli, another brigadier-general, almost succeeded where al-Zaim failed. In 1954, however, he made the classic mistake of ordering the army tobias of the trial judge.
From the evidence the jury could find that on the afternoon of March 29, 1981, the defendant assaulted Denette Elgin in a restaurant parking lot. Defendant, who was wearing a gun under his sweatshirt, demanded that Denette surrender her money and her purse. After a brief scuffle, defendant fled on foot through the parking lot.
There were two eyewitnesses to this assault, who pursued by car. As defendant fled over the top of a nearby grassy knoll, the two left in their car and continued the chase on foot. When the pursuers reached the top of the knoll, they were forced to retreat because defendant turned and waved his pistol at them. Defendant continued to wave the pistol as he climbed into his parked van