Here’s a loaded and somewhat incomprehensible statement, from today’s Washington Post:

After 42 years of Baath Party rule, Syria is often portrayed as a country shackled by dictatorship. But in the debate over its identity is a more nuanced portrait of a country every bit as complex as neighboring Iraq and Lebanon.

What precisely is nuanced about Bashar Assad’s brutal dictatorship? The Assad family’s minority Alawite stranglehold over power? The ruling clan’s involvement in the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri? Nuanced? Syria has “one of the world’s worst human rights records”. It has long sponsored terrorism, is building weapons of mass destruction, and brutally occupied Lebanon for 30 years. Nuanced?