#Syria

The Warden Moves In

Syria is the fourth case study in the Stratford authoritarianism series, and it answers the promise the Chile essay ended on. They cannot invade your thoughts, the exiles' elder said. Syria is the regime that tried hardest, and its masterpiece was not the prison but the prisoner who runs one inside himself, a warden who outlasts the dictatorship that installed him. The same terror that garrisoned every skull also cooked the country's books, and a regime that forces its people to lie eventually cannot read its own ledger. Nobody predicted the fall, including the men it fell on.