Mubarak & Abdullah's Middle East. slipping out of their grip and into that of new mavericks, most notably, Syria's Assad...

In Haaretz, in case you missed it back 'then', here

".......Bashar Assad, who is half their age; Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is repositioning the former Ottoman Empire into power; and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is blazing like a menacing meteor over the Arab Middle East...."