The tyrant stuff is frankly overblown. Context is key here. Bashar Assad was born into the ruling family, but by all accounts, the last thing Bashar Assad ever wanted to do was rule Syria. He became an eye doctor, of all things. He was doing his ophthalmology residency, living in London with his attractive wife, when the call came that his older brother who was being groomed to take over, had died in a car accident.Comment by Greg on "'Free Syrian Army' on the Verge of Total Collapse." By Slobodan Lekic, Russian Insider, 12/17/15. Originally published at Stars and Stripes, 12/13/15.If you're Bashar Assad, what do you do? Do you stay in London and hope for the best? That may not be a great strategy even if that was his inclination, because if the regime were to fall, he probably wouldn't have a nice life in London like nothing ever happened. No, he'd probably be hounded like Gaddafi's sons. So he took the job.
Then your father dies and you're appointed president. Now what do you do? Just call free elections? Not that simple, because there are a lot of vested interests in Syria other than your immediate family -for example the military. You do that, and there could be a military coup the next day.
So he charted an extremely cautious course -limited reforms, all the while rightfully wary of extremist elements that could bubble up from just below the surface. And of course mindful of the fact that there's a simmering destabilization campaign funded by the United States. Did he crack down too hard on the protesters? Maybe. But if he didn't crack down hard *enough*, he risked Gaddafi's fate. In the end he was proven right that extremist elements would come to the forefront of the Syrian opposition.
You play with the cards you're given. It's easy to criticize Assad as a tyrant, but if any of us were born with his set of cards, I'm not sure we'd play them any differently. And if we did, things might be worse.
Thursday, December 17, 2015
A brief respite from the "Assad the Butcher" hysterics.
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6 comments:
The only reason I ever had for disliking Assad was his willingness to allow Hamas and Fatah (IIRC) to stage attacks on Israel from his country. But Obama refuses to allow any country with a secular leader in the "land of mohammed", so Assad has to go. And there seems to be some written basis for believing that Obama helped create ISIS, and it is obvious he is assisting ISIS by _not_ prosecuting serious war against them, but only _pretending_ to do so.
That's why he is helping Iran become a nuclear power, because Israel - as a nation - has to go. Time for a "muslim spring" for Israel, so that the so-called "Palestinians" can finish ruining the country and destroying 3000 years of Hebrew history. Obama would wet himself with excitement if Israel was taken over by Iran or ISIS or any other muslims group. Obama hates Netanyahu and Israel, partly because of his love for islam, but also because he expected Bibi to bow to him the way he bows to the Saudi royal family. I don't think Bibi feels much like bowing to an effeminate peg boy.
Assad has to go is a cog in the bigger program of using the islamic cult to crash the European nation state model and impose the new feudalism of one world government.
He's Indbur III?
Reg, he's vilified with energy and abandon but the details are invariably vague. I suspect you're right about allowing attacks but I'd wager that it was Hezbollah vice the other two which I associate with Gaza. Lord knows you need a scorecard to keep track. I'm surprised Gen. Buck Naked isn't involved there.
Assad has been conciliatory to Israel and has assisted the U.S. with its renditions and interrogations. The gas deal is not on him, I believe, and the barrel bomb deal is just stupid. As though those nice sleek bomb are OK.
Clearly Obama is a Muslim. It must infuriate him to be treated with contempt.
Andy, I do think ISIS is being instructed to be extraordinarily brutal to generate refugees. Assad is one of the few men actually fighting terrorists and this is intolerable to the globalists.
Joseph, I had to look that one up. Assad was preceded by a tough father whose way of dealing with the jihadis in Homs was, in retrospect, has been underappreciated. Lesson learned should have been: given jihadi anything, attack with ferocity. We are obsessed with Marquess of Queensbury rules and being nice in contrast and have lost billions, millions killed, and now have a massive jihadis network in the field and around the world. Brutal turned out not to be and now you have the saintly, fastidious NYT moaning about barrel bombs, as though a crude bomb tears the flesh off more savagely than a sleek one.
Assad is quite effective I think. He's wiser and more decent than his American enemies whose war against him is secret, shrouded in lies, and unclean. I think he did Syrians a favor by coming home and is man enough to survive in a tough environment. Obama isn't half the man he is. Would that Obama looked out for the interests of Americans the was Assad does for Syrians'.
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