Assad and Tehran veto Allawite statehood and any Syrian partition, while the Druze leader Walid Jumblatt forges a pact with al Qaeda affiliate to protect his community in Syria and Lebanon.

The Iranian government Wednesday, Oct. 3, invoked the emergency measures drawn up for the 2009 protests to deploy large Bassij militia forces in the capital and put down the first angry protests against mounting economic hardship and the plummeting rial.  Money changers and gold merchants attacked police, torched their cars and threatened a general shutdown of trading and the Bazaar. The government decided to draw the line in Tehran before the anti-government unrest spreads further.

As Morsi scrounges for crumbs from affluent world leaders to ease Egypt’s economic distress, he runs up against a Salafist fatwa banning international credit on which interest is payable as a violation of Muslim tenets.