War & Rumors of War: I do spend a lot of time making fun of American establishment think-tank foreign-policy chin-scratching "strategists" whose recommendations boil down so often and for so many places to searching for a democracy-minded strongman or a “third way”. But I must confess that this about Syria today, from the smart and good-hearted Marc Lynch, is no better:

Marc Lynch: Five Thoughts on Syria's Unfrozen Conflict: ‘There’s the question of HTS itself. HTS has excellent public public relations, a great communication strategy, charismatic leader, and a keen interest in presenting themselves as a viable, rational, and pragmatic movement. Jolani/Shara’a has been saying many of the “right” things…. I certainly think that HTS should be given the chance to govern, subject to all the sorts of human rights and democratic standards we should look for in any regime (but don’t get in virtually any in the region)…. But HTS is not a[n]… organization… [with] a long history of participating in elections, theorizing, religion, and democracy, and finding ways to work with non-Islamist trends at various junctures. HTS emerges very much out of the universe of jihadism, which spans what used to be Al-Qaeda through the Islamic State and has, shall we say, very strong views about the role of religion in politics and society… <abuaardvark.substack.co…>

That “subject to… human rights and democratic standards” is an interesting phrase, given that the chances that HTS will not be a major denier of human rights and a breaker of democratic standards are very, very small. What I need to know is how Marc Lynch thinks the international order should set up the gameboard to effectively incentivize HTS to behave less badly both inside and outside Syria. But that is not what I get. I get pious self-contradictory hopes.