More From Damascus

Returned to Beirut on Thursday night and spent Friday afternoon on the hills above Damascus, watching the sun go down over the city, and Saturday morning visiting the tomb of Seyyida Zeinab, the granddaughter of Hussein in a neighborhood with a lot of Iraqis. Graham and I were talking, wondered why all these Shi'a monuments were in Damascus, as opposed to say Kerbala. Then we noticed some short guy following us around the masjid and staring. Maybe he was some low-level Intel dude, intent on getting a big score. I greeted him but he stared at me icily. In the market, I bought a ring from a guy at the souq who gave me the passive-aggressive "ahlan wa sahlan," indicating that I should hurry up and do my business and move on. But these two were the ONLY incidents during my visit where people were even remotely NOT polite. And this was following an illegal border raid into Syria by the US government. It amazes me the degree to which people can readily seperate the actions of governments from the actions of people.