Syrian authorities kept the restive city of Hama under a blackout Thursday, cutting phone lines, Internet and electricity as part of a brutal, five-day-old crackdown on anti-government dissent. Activists expressed concern about worsening humanitarian conditions there, saying medical supplies and bread were in short supply even before the latest siege.
Something is going to give. Will it be the Syrian protesters who crack and go home? The bulk of the Syrian army that can't kill on this scale much longer? The Turks who can't bear to watch the slaughter any longer? The Syrian leadeship which would rather follow their money fleeing abroad than risk the fight to save their privileged position?
Or can the killing just keep going on at this pace for months and months with nobody blinking?