The US defence secretary, Robert Gates, is one of the Obama administration officials to suggest President Bashar al-Assad has lost the legitimacy to rule Syria. A more pressing question for the international community as it contemplates the regime's ever more vicious efforts to crush the pro-democracy uprising is whether Assad has lost the plot.
It's impossible to know for sure what is happening on the ground in Syria. But recent events have thrown up several clues as to the regime's worsening predicament, widening internal divisions and lack of a clear strategy.
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