The lead for Hugh Naylor, "Tired of Energy Ills, Syrians Doubt the West Is to Blame," in today's New York Times:

Syria has had a summer of power failures and electricity shortages, and recent suggestions by Prime Minister Muhammad Naki al-Otari that American and French economic pressures are to blame are being greeted with skepticism by a weary public.

Mr. Otari’s claims represent a shift in position in a country that has long held that American pressure has had a negligible impact. But many Syrians say their electricity woes are more a function of government incompetence than of international pressure.

“According to my knowledge, the official line has been that America’s sanctions and its policy of isolating Syria are both failing,” Nidal Malouf, director of the Syrian Economic Center, wrote in an Aug. 5 article on Syria-News.com, a private online news agency. “Now the government is trying to find an excuse for its failure to provide cities with the most basic needs.”