All Policy Analysis by أندرو جيه. تابلر

Relations between the Syrian government and Americans who work with Syrians here are as bad as I have seen in the four years since I began working as the American editor of Syria Today, the country's first private-sector English language magazine. Last November, the Syrian authorities closed the Damascus offices

The Middle East is abuzz with talk of ''Shiitization.'' Since the war in Lebanon last summer, newspapers, TV news channels and Web sites in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere have reported that Sunnis, taken with Hezbollah's charismatic Shiite leader Hassan Nasrallah and his group's ''resistance'' to Israel, were converting to

Damascus, Syria It is hardly surprising that when discussing the Lebanon crisis, President Bush tends to couple Syria's role with Iran's. After all, Damascus and Tehran have spent the better part of the last year deepening their ties, culminating in a June military cooperation agreement. But the United States may