> Wojtek seems to have been well indoctrinated
> in his homeland--dictatorial state capitalism as THE progressive force in
> the world!
Woj didn't say that, and there's no need for such rudeness. The early postcolonial regimes of the Middle East were never state-capitalist in that sense - they were populist-military regimes, with similarities to Latin America's modernization-minded juntas (Nasser engaged in limited land reforms, e.g.). The privatizations and neoliberal kleptocracy came much later. The shift was less dramatic in Syria than other places, but experts on the place say the elder Assad (and this is not to excuse the brutality of the regime) engaged in land reform, mass education and some level of state-led redistribution, while the younger Assad mostly followed the neolib playbook.
Judging by all the evidence, Syria is having a genuine, mass-based revolution against an ideologically and economically bankrupt oligarchy in the late stages of disintegration. What the character of that revolution is, is really up to the people of Syria. The best case scenario is, they topple the regime and democratize with minimal violence; in the worst-case scenario, the uprising turns into a nasty sectarian conflict, which replaces an untenable Alawite dynasty with a Sunni military oligarchy.
But there's still hope. Post-dictatorial Tunisia, Libya, Yemen and Egypt have all found ways to put the guns down and choose their own unique paths to democratization. I don't blame ordinary Syrians for picking up guns to defend themselves against a monstrous regime, but in the long-term, hope lies in the unarmed protesters who continue to defy the regime's thugs and march in Syria's streets.
-- DRR