BBC's helpful timeline of major military and political events in Syria

Published today.  The timeline is from October 1918 to September 2015. Again, helpful -- and a walk down memory lane. I'd forgotten many of the incidents, or heard so little about them at the time they didn't register. Now, though, all those events add up to a better understanding of the present conflict. 

Bashar al-Assad told the Wall Street Journal in a 2011 interview,  "The problem with most of the officials we have from the US during previous administrations, whether they have good or bad intentions, is that they knew very little about this region."  

Yes.

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