🌊 The Media's Favorite Tyrants

Did someone forward you this? Subscribe here free!

In March 2011, Vogue ran a cover story about a “wildly democratic” couple in the Middle East.

They were chic, sophisticated, progressive. They governed a bright spot on the map – ”a secular country where women earn as much as men and the Muslim veil is forbidden in universities, a place without bombings, unrest, or kidnappings.”

They endorsed “active citizenship”; they were family people and in their home, “We all vote on what we want, and where.”

They were the Assads – a “rose in the desert,” in Vogue’s words.

Soon, the only red in the desert would be blood.

Bashar al-Assad was born in Syria in 1965, the third of six children. When he was five, his father – a military officer named Hafez al-Assad – overthrew Syria’s government and became the country’s leader.

Bashar reaped the benefits of his father’s position, living in luxury in Damascus and attending an elite Syrian high school. Yet as he did so, the Syrian people suffered: In 1982, the year Bashar graduated, his father ordered the military to level Hama, a city where rebels had taken up arms against his regime. Up to 40,000 Syrian civilians died in that event, marking the deadliest single use of force by a Middle Eastern leader against their own people.

The lesson wouldn’t be lost on his son.

Shortly after Hafez took power in Syria, two Syrians emigrated to London where they ran a medical practice and welcomed a daughter, Asma, in 1975. Asma attended the UK’s top schools, studied computer science, and landed a job at JP Morgan. While she was launching her career, Bashar arrived in England to study ophthalmology. The pair would eventually meet at Syria’s London embassy.

At the time, Bashar was relatively unimportant. Shy and lacking any apparent interest in politics, it was well known that his older brother – a flashy military officer named Bassel – would succeed his father in ruling Syria. Bashar seemed destined for a life of medicine.

In 1994, though, Bassel was driving at over 100 MPH in his Mercedes, rushing to catch a flight from Syria to Germany for a ski trip, when he crashed into a barrier and died instantly.

Hafez summoned Bashar back to Syria. He’d never practice medicine again.

Editor’s Note

The news doesn’t stop. Thank you for trusting us with it.

We’ll be back later this week with a deep dive on Abu Mohammed al Jolani, the al-Qaeda fighter-turned-rebel leader who leads HTS, as mentioned in today’s story. See you then.

–Max and Max

RocaNews co-founders