The Hill News

Is it possible to imagine that Bashar al-Assad, the British-educated Syrian leader, will be deterred from following his father’s example, which stamped out the cries for freedom in his country?

What a prize that would be: a democratic Syria. Forget Libya, Syria has huge geo-strategic implications because of its relations with Iran, Lebanon, Hezbollah and Hamas. Regime change would have an enormous impact on Israel and Iran.

The Assad family from the minority Alawite sect succeeded in engineering a dynastic succession where fellow Baathist Saddam Hussein (and now Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak) failed. But hopes of reform and cooperation nursed by the U.S. and Britain, which tried to engage with Bashar, were dashed. All Western attempts to peel the Syrians away from their Iranian allies have failed.

Read more...