A dictator, a tyrant, a butcher have been welcomed back into the Arab fold. All in the form of one man: Bashar al-Assad, the president of Syria.
Ever since the ill-fated Arab Spring, when Assad ruthlessly put down protests against his rule, the man has been a pariah in the Arab world. The Arab League, some of whose member countries are no strangers to ruthless suppression themselves, kicked him out. The world stuck him in quarantine. Until last year, the only known trips he made out of Syria were to the capitals of his two allies, Iran and Russia, both of which helped him annihilate parts of his own nation.
It is a measure of Assad’s comradely connection to Vladimir Putin that when Russia held sham elections last year in four Ukrainian provinces, then annexed them to be part of Russia itself, Syria was one of only two nations to officially recognize the move as legitimate. The other was North Korea. Assad’s only other ally is Hezbollah, the terrorist group that rules much of Lebanon.
That’s the kind of company he keeps.
Who else but the likes of these despots would break bread with a man who waged war against his own citizens, a war that by some estimates killed more than a half-million Syrians, incinerated immense swaths of anti-Assad cities, chased more than 14-million people from their homes, and created a massive refugee crisis in the Middle East and Europe? Who else would break bread with a man who tortured and bombed his own people, sometimes using banned cluster bombs to subdue seditious refugees in their camps and sometimes, although he denied it, unleashing chemical weapons.
When Trump was president,. he accurately called Assad an “animal.”
Who else would break bread with such an animal? Well, as it turns out, most members of the Arab League. For after being shunned and isolated for twelve years, this weekend Assad traveled again, flying to the Arab League summit in Saudi Arabia. And he was brought back in with open arms. In fact before this official picture was taken of his handshake with Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, the host of the summit, the two men shared a hug.
It’s as if the Syrian civil war hadn’t happened. It’s as if Adolf Hitler, had he survived World War Two, would be welcomed back to the community of Europe. It’s as if Vladimir Putin, if he’s still around years after his vicious war crimes against Ukraine, would be welcomed back into the community of nations.
There were excuses, of course. Crown Prince Mohammed said he hoped Syria’s “return to the Arab League leads to the end of its crisis.” Reuters quoted a Gulf analyst who said, “Do we want Syria to be less Arab and more Iranian, or ... to come back to the Arab fold?” Some Arab officials argue that now they can try to moderate Assad’s behavior. For his part, the Syrian president told his fellow Arabs as he was accepted back at the summit, “I hope that it marks the beginning of a new phase of Arab action for solidarity among us, for peace in our region, development and prosperity instead of war and destruction.” As if his words about peace and prosperity carry any credibility after his savage attacks over the past twelve years. Peace and prosperity for Syrians became distant memories.
His savagery is no surprise though. His father was as bad as he is.
In 1982, Hafez al-Assad crushed a rebellion against his authoritarian rule in the city of Hama. Estimates are that he killed up to 40,000 insubordinate Syrians. Hama itself was reduced to rubble. Historians have called it the “single deadliest act” of violence by an Arab leader against his own population in the modern history of the Middle East.
That’s the kind of blood that runs through Bashar al-Assad’s veins.
I reported from an Arab League summit decades ago. It was in Fez, Morocco, and attracted the likes of Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi, Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, the PLO’s Yasser Arafat, and Syria’s Hafez al-Assad. They broke bread too but I’ll never forget, as I watched them, the looks in their eyes as they met. It was easy to see that between regional rivalries and disputed borders and ethnic and religious differences, their affection for one another was as thin as their smiles.
That’s the nature of many alliances in the Middle East.
But it helps to understand that many abide their antipathy because Bashar al-Assad’s pitiless regime is the nature of theirs too. In his speech to his forgiving partners, he showed his hand with words which would fall on the willing ears of other authoritarian leaders who also oppress citizens who don’t toe the line: ”It is important to leave internal affairs to the country's people as they are best able to manage them.” In other words, what happens in Syria stays in Syria. I’ve covered enough autocrats like him that I can translate his code: “the country’s people” means “my people, the ones who side with me.” Given his way, he would liquidate the rest.
There have been warnings about the impact of Assad’s return.
In this opinion piece in a newspaper in Kuwait (which I had Google translate to English), a columnist named Hamed al-Humoud wrote, “Hopefully we remember the torment of the Syrian people when meeting al-Assad.” Dareen Khalifa, part of the International Crisis Group, told The New York Times, “The fact that Assad is coming back strong and untouched, it is sending a signal to Arab leaders… Assad having this victory lap in the region and dictators knowing you can get away with it.”
The question is, are today’s rulers really willing to let him? At least one had the backbone to signal that he isn’t. As Assad prepared to speak to the Arab League summit, Qatar’s emir walked out. Five years ago he called Assad a war criminal and evidently hasn’t changed his tune. But most stayed. Most broke bread.
They didn’t even force any preconditions on the president of Syria to treat his people humanely before seating him again as an equal. Bashar al-Assad is getting away with it. For shame.
Over almost five decades Greg Dobbs has been a correspondent for two television networks including ABC News, a political columnist for The Denver Post and syndicated columnist for Scripps newspapers, a moderator on Rocky Mountain PBS, and author of two books, including one about the life of a foreign correspondent called “Life in the Wrong Lane.” He has covered presidencies, politics, and the U.S. space program at home, and wars, natural disasters, and other crises around the globe, from Afghanistan to South Africa, from Iran to Egypt, from the Soviet Union to Saudi Arabia, from Nicaragua to Namibia, from Vietnam to Venezuela, from Libya to Liberia, from Panama to Poland. Dobbs has won three Emmys, the Distinguished Service Award from the Society of Professional Journalists, and as a 37-year resident of Colorado, a place in the Denver Press Club Hall of Fame.
Assad's concern for his own people is as nonexistent as his chin. He is a classic case of what absolute power does in the hands of madmen.
Greg
Thanks for this reminder of Assad’s brutal reign. There’s just too much of this world and of totalitarian rulers for whom their own power is their reason for living--- and too many who abet that. After all, his boyfriend MBS, dismembered Kashoggi for his crticisms. Birds of a feather....