Maysaloon - ميسلون

I believed months ago that Hamas' position was no longer tenable in Syria. In spite of some odd statements by Khaled Meshaal about the Syrian regime, it is an open secret in Gaza that Iran has stopped payments to the movement since the start of the revolution, and my sources tell me that this is because Hamas did not ask for Palestinians in Syria to come out in support of Assad. Now Hamas is leaving Syria, and Khaled Meshaal is going to resign from his position. If, and when, Assad goes, then the dynamics of the region will be altered greatly, and Hamas, aligned as closely with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, could start taking a more "pragmatic" approach to its international relations.

On one level, I won't deny the enormous influence of Islamist groups in the shape of post-dictatorship governments, but I still believe that these revolutions have been larger than any one ideology, Islamic or otherwise, and the same forces which are making dictatorship a relic of the past in the Arab world will also hold any future Islamic parties to task for any shortcomings. The way politics in this region will be carried out has changed forever, and whilst some despots have found this out sooner than others, all of the region's kings and colonels are discovering how weak they really are in the face of their people. We haven't seen the end of Saudi Arabian discontent, and Iran's green movement is most likely watching what is happening in Syria with much interest. We're nowhere near the end, you just wait and see.