There's lots of news coming out of Syria recently. On the bright side, it looks like they're interested in restarting negotiations with Israel. I'd cite that as evidence for my conspiracy theory, but I'd also have to deal with the counter-evidence that they seem to be providing aid to the terrorist forces in Iraq. So maybe my theory isn't so accurate after all. Or maybe it's more complicated than I thought. A true conspiracy theorist could work these bits of counter-evidence in.
In any case, conspiracy or not, there's evidence that there's a growing pro-democracy movement in Syria in this story:
More than half a million Syrians demanded political and economic reform in a petition to be handed to President Bashar Assad, a human rights group said Saturday.
Some 600,000 citizens, including intellectuals, lawyers and human rights activists, have already signed the document, the Committees for the Defense of Democratic Liberties and Human Rights in Syria said.
The group said it hoped for a million signatures by March. Syria has a population of around 18 million.
One million is a significant fraction (5.5%) when the population is 18 million. Even 600,000 (3.3%) is nothing to be sneezed at. That that many people are unafraid to put their names on a petition indicates a real possibility of positive reform.
(Thanks to Instapundit and Winds of Change for the links)
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