...The Chinless Wonder!

Analysis: Syria's Leader Remains an Enigma

Had it not been for the premature death of the eldest son of the Assad clan, Bashar al-Assad might well be enjoying the quiet life of a private medical practice in Damascus, or London, or perhaps Paris, as he speaks both English and French.

"When I first came here, this was all swamp. Everyone said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built it all the same, just to show them. It sank into the swamp. So I built a second one. That sank into the swamp. So I built a third. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp. But the fourth one stayed up. And that's what you're going to get, Lad, the strongest castle in all of England." [er...Syria, - ed.]

But when his brother was killed in an automobile accident in 1994, his father, Syrian President Hafez al-Assad called him home from studies in London and began grooming him for a political life. Six years later, Hafez died and Bashar al-Assad was Syria's new president.

At the recent annual conference of the Middle East Institute in Washington, journalist and political analyst Hisham Melhem of al-Arabiya TV said that was one of the few mistakes by the wily Hafez al-Assad.

"One day, lad, all this will be yours."

"What, the curtains?"

"No, not the curtains, lad, all that you can see stretched out over the valleys and the hills! That'll be your kingdom, lad."

"But I would argue that one of his biggest mistakes, if you will, was to bequeath the realm, so to speak, to his son, a 35-year old inexperienced young man," he said. "Now, Bashar's era shows, I would argue, the pitfalls of political inheritance in the Arab world. And it's very hard, five years after he began his rule, to point out to a single domestic, regional or international decision that this regime made that was wise or farsighted. And I'm not being harsh on him."

"You fell out of the tall tower, you creep!"

"I was saved at the last minute."

But speaking at the Middle East Institute, investigative journalist Seymour Hersh warned against any rush to judgment of Syria, saying the United States has an agenda in the region.

"I'm exceedingly skeptical, and I have been all along, of the point of view of what happened to Hariri," said Mr. Hersh. "The American point of view is that it was Syria with the aid of some people in Lebanon. Despite all the back and forth about how the American press corps was totally manipulated, to its embarrassment, about WMD, I would still argue, we're still being totally manipulated by this administration about Syria and Lebanese involvement."

"Oh, fair one, behold, I am your humble servant Sir Launcelot Seymour. I have come to take...Oh, I'm terribly sorry!"

"You got my note!"

"Uh, well, I got a note."

"You've come to rescue me! I knew someone would! I knew that somewhere out there, there must be someone who..."

All this time, there's been something nagging in the back of my brain about Bashar the Chinless Wonder Assad.

Just tonight it hit me. He reminds me of the fruity prince from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Heh. First time I've ever been able to fisk something using movie quotes, but then, O Chinless One makes it all too easy.

Cross posted at VAM

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