Seven Questions About Syria's Immediate Future

Jeffrey Goldberg Jul 18 2012, 9:49 AM ET

No answers, only questions:

1. How frightened is the Iranian regime right now about the prospect of losing its only Arab ally?

2. What specifically is the West doing to make sure that Syria's chemical weapons are secure and are not used?

3. Could this mess have been avoided by early intervention?

4. Does Asma al-Assad, Bashar's wife, regret not taking a Jordanian offer of refuge months ago?

5. Anyone want to take out long-term life insurance on newly-appointed Syrian defense minister Gen. Fahad Jassim al-Freij?

6. Did today's suicide bombers watch "Valkyrie" and learn from Tom Cruise's mistakes?

7. What does Kofi Annan do now?

UPDATED:8. How long before we find out that al Qaeda is behind this bombing, and how long before we discover that it does not know how to stop?

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Jeffrey Goldberg is a national correspondent for The Atlantic and a recipient of the National Magazine Award for Reporting. Author of the book Prisoners: A Story of Friendship and Terror, Goldberg also writes the magazine's advice column. More

Before joining The Atlantic in 2007, Goldberg was a Middle East correspondent, and the Washington correspondent, for The New Yorker. Previously, he served as a correspondent for The New York Times Magazine and New York magazine. He has also written for the Jewish Daily Forward, and was a columnist for The Jerusalem Post.

His book Prisoners was hailed as one of the best books of 2006 by the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Slate, The Progressive, Washingtonian magazine, and Playboy. Goldberg rthe recipient of the 2003 National Magazine Award for Reporting for his coverage of Islamic terrorism. He is also the winner of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists prize for best international investigative journalist; the Overseas Press Club award for best human-rights reporting; and the Abraham Cahan Prize in Journalism. He is also the recipient of 2005's Anti-Defamation League Daniel Pearl Prize.

In 2001, Goldberg was appointed the Syrkin Fellow in Letters of the Jerusalem Foundation, and in 2002 he became a public-policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C.