Quote Originally Posted by JMA View Post
Does Liddle answer [the] question [“What proportion of the Syrian population is fully in support of the continued uprising”]?

Not close.

Maybe he passed journalism school with junk like this but would not pass staff writing at any half decent army college.
I disagree that he failed to answer his own question, but I do agree that the prose is very much journalism writing. As such, you can get the gist by reading the first sentence of each paragraph (this is so the editor knows what can be cut without asking the writer). These include:

But I still do not see much evidence of burgeoning fury and rebellion among ordinary Syrians; as Hillary Clinton put it: ‘You don’t see uprisings across Syria the way you did in Libya.’

At the very least — the very least — you can say with some certainty that the popular opposition to Assad is far less widespread in Syria than was the opposition to the government in Bahrain, for example.
I think it is a responsible answer given the limited evidence available. While you may find that he hedges too much, I will remind you of the words of someone whom you seem to admire: “The demand for certainty is one which is natural to man, but is nevertheless an intellectual vice.”