Arguments:

Vladimir Putin is the only sane voice on Syria, says Paul Robinson; Assad will pay for his sins sooner or later, writes Andrew Cohen,

These are the Days of Awe. If you are a Jew, even one who is not observant, you will understand their significance. If you are not a Jew, you may still see them as relevant.

This is the period between Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. It is in these seminal 10 days that God decides the fate of every Jew in the coming year.

For some, it will be a sweet year, a wish signified by the eating of apples and honey on Rosh Hashanah. It may also be a hard year. God decides whether life will be good or bad — and, for some, whether there will be life at all.

One’s individual fate is inscribed in the Book of Life on Rosh Hashanah. But it is not etched in stone. The nice part about these days — and why their appeal is deeply human — is there is still time to change things.

During the Days of Awe, God is open to persuasion, to a point. It is kind of a court of appeal. Through a demonstration of teshuvah, tefillah and tzedakah, (repentance, prayer and charity,) you may redeem yourself.

In other words, if you were down for a very bad fate, you might be able to escape it. To say that “it is written” — a byword for the determinism of other faiths — does not necessarily hold here. For Jews, “it is not written,” until the book is sealed when the sun goes down on Yom Kippur.

“May you be inscribed for a good year,” Jews wish each other, realizing the opportunity to make good in this interlude of introspection, climaxing on Yom Kippur in a full day of fasting and praying in synagogue. Time to pray, time to atone, time to do good works.

The Days of Awe are about sins and judgment. The ancient prayer makes it clear that God decides “who shall live and who shall die, who at the measure of man’s days and who before it; who shall perish by fire and who by water, who by the sword, who by wild beasts, who by hunger and who by thirst; who by earthquake and who by plague, who by strangling and who by stoning; who shall have rest and who shall go wandering, who will be tranquil and who shall be harassed, who shall be at ease and who shall be afflicted; who shall become poor and who shall wax rich; who shall be brought low and who shall be upraised.”

Leonard Cohen offers a modern menu of choices. “Who in her lonely slip?” he asks cheerfully. “Who by barbiturate?”

This biblical practice speaks to us today. As American lawmakers contemplate bringing fire and brimstone down upon a desert kingdom, the Days of Awe are a reminder that even the wicked, whatever their persuasion, once had options to rethink things. They had time for their own kind of plea bargaining.

Because the foremost instinct of dictators is to refuse to leave, we can imagine a bad end for Bashar al-Assad, the President of Syria, who has brought all manner of horrors upon his people. He faces the same fate as those other strutting strongmen who didn’t cut a deal to walk away when they could.

Assad may not be stoned, strangled, drowned, burned or starved this year. Or next year. Or in five years. But some day, some way — whether by an American missile or an al-Qaida bomb — his sins will catch up with him. He could have accepted a deal two years ago and gone to Russia with his family and fortune. But messianic minds are not given to giving up power.

Saddam Hussein could have had a deal in Iraq, as could Moammar Gadhafi in Libya. Had he been smarter, even Nicolae Ceausescu of Romania might have escaped his fate of summary trial and execution on Christmas Day, 1989.

Assad may not be stoned, strangled, drowned, burned or starved this year. Or next year. Or in five years. But some day, some way — whether by an American missile or an al-Qaida bomb — his sins will catch up with him.

Hosni Mubarak, who wasn’t in their league, could have left Egypt two years ago. He retreated to his villa on the Red Sea. While he is no longer under arrest, he is said to be sick and depressed.

All had a moment to reverse their fate. Much earlier, a decade or so ago, Bashar Assad imagined something better for himself than being a dull ophthalmologist wielding poison gas. He saw himself as a progressive, better than his authoritarian father, and he briefly acted like one. It didn’t last. He went from that short Damascus Spring, which offered the promise of liberalization, to a long Damascus Winter. The man who once released political prisoners now shoots them.

A confused, tired world condemns Assad, but is prepared to tolerate him and his use of chemical weapons. Still, in these Days of Awe, a time to contemplate consequences, we must hope that he, too, will have his appointment with an unforgiving God.