WTH: The Fall of Assad

Hafez el Assad took power in Syria in 1971, and ruled ruthlessly for almost 30 years until his death. One of his many sobriquets was “the butcher of Hama,” so named for the killing of some 20,000 Syrians who rebelled against his tyrannical regime in 1982. When that happened, it barely made the news; if memory serves, a small piece was relegated to page 17 of The New York Times.

While Assad was no genius, he was a shrewd operator who secured his own place in power, and Syria’s role as Iranian entrepôt and de facto ruler of Lebanon. He had hoped to hand his crown — and make no mistake, this self proclaimed “socialist” intended to keep his country in his family — to his son Bassil, who then inconveniently died in a car accident. Thus, the crown fell to Assad’s younger son, Bashar, a lesser intellect who more than made up for his many failings with a streak of viciousness that would have made his papa proud.

Now Bashar is gone, the Assads are no more, and Syria is, perhaps briefly, free. It didn’t have to be this way.