From London-trained eye specialist to blood-thirsty tyrant, Bashar Assad had a hesitant rise and spectacular fall
Foreign military muscle stabilized Assad’s hold on power, and the ophthalmologist turned warlord shored up his own support base among the country’s Alawites and other minorities, using the time-honored Assad talking point about the language of power.
“There is no way to govern our society except with the shoe over people’s heads,” he said.
But it was all an illusion. Underneath the appearance of stability, the Assad regime had been hollowed out, and the regime itself was just a front for the Iranian, Hezbollah, and Russian forces propping it up. Underneath that façade, the two devils with which Bashar al-Assad had bargained were about to desert him as the heat was turned up.
That’s all in hindsight, though. Two weeks ago, experts assumed that the conflict had been perma-frozen. In reality, Turkey-backed rebels in the north had been preparing for an offensive for a year. That time period coincided with the growing weakness of the Assad regime, as its external props faltered.
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