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Owen Bennett Jones presents two stories from ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ correspondents in the Middle East. While Jeremy Bowen weighs up the tactics - and the future - of the Assad regime in Syria; Kevin Connolly, over the border in Israel, reflects on the region's wider water crisis and feels guilt about irrigating the lemon tree on his balcony.

The fog of what?

The final outcome of the Arab Spring in countries such as Egypt and Tunisia remains deeply uncertain. Will they end up with western-style party democracy, a new form of political Islam or something else altogether? Politically speaking, it's all still up for grabs.

But in Syria there are even more divergent possible futures. And it's even harder to predict what might happen in the future, when even contemporary events are disputed. Jeremy Bowen has been there on a rare reporting visa - and he found that speculation, scaremongering and secretiveness are all rampant.

Feed it and weep

Correspondents move around with ease – or at least they're supposed to. They're like modern-day nomads, seeking fresh pastures of fertile news on which to graze. And as a result, many are reluctant to put down roots: if you might have to move your whole life abroad every few years, it often seems tbest to avoid long-term projects.

But as Kevin Connolly has been discovering, sometimes the urge to garden, to plant something in the earth and nurture it, can't be resisted any longer. Yet in the parched territory of the Middle East, doing so can cause all sorts of anguish. Where water is so scarce - and highly prized - "making the desert bloom" might not be ecologically sound.