The Week | April 21, 2011

At the beginning of the uprising, many Syrians would probably have been satisfied with Assad's lifting of the emergency law. But the autocrat's brutal response to protests has helped foster a more revolutionary spirit. "I used to be more careful with my predictions," says Rime Allaf a Syrian political analayst at London's Chatham House, as quoted by The Christian Science Monitor. But right now, "people are infuriated by the killings that the regime has done over the past few days. The mood is very defiant."