When the “Arab Spring” exploded in 2011, my high schooler daughter was fascinated (setting the path for her career). I recall our discussing Syria’s civil war and saying, “How does this end?” It was hard to see. Eventually it seemed to end, sort of, in a grim status quo. But now, a sudden surprise, a very different ending. Though history never does end.
I have a poster with photos of all the world’s worst villains, and love being able to ink a big “X” on the faces of those who go down. Actually, the poster is just in my head. And it seems those getting X’d are always replaced by new ones.
Syria’s Bashar Assad was certainly there. An astounding amount of blood on his hands; tens of thousands literally tortured; immense other human suffering. All just so one man could relish power and wealth. Even when absconding he looted the national treasury. Disgusting.
Too bad his crimes weren’t repaid in his own blood. My model there is what I call The Ceausescu Treatment. In Romania’s 1989 revolution, dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and his spousal partner in crime were captured and put on trial. Given an hour or so to rant and shake fingers at their accusers, the two, in their mink coats, were then taken out and executed.
Ceausescu and his wife were shot
On Christmas Day
On Christmas Day
Ceausescu and his wife were shot
On Christmas Day
In the morning!
Saddam Hussein was hanged. Exemplary too was the grisly fate of Libya’s Qadaffi. Pulled from a drain pipe where he was ignominiously hiding. I wrote a poem rejoicing about it (www.fsrcoin.com/Sirte.htm.html)
Alas though, bad guys more typically avoid such endings. In Assad’s case, I actually found it remarkable that through all the violence he unleashed, he himself seemed to have impunity. I even did a blog post in 2012 titled “Where are the suicide bombers when they’re needed?” Noting that legions of fanatics were willing to die to kill innocents, while not one tried to kill the monster Assad. But adding that “Syrians going into the streets don’t want to throw away their lives; but are willing to risk them in a just cause . . . It’s a tragic aspect of the human condition that sometimes confronts us with such awful choices.”
Still, Assad’s overthrow is a hopeful development. The people now ascendant in Syria are saying all the right things about having a pluralistic democratic society. Many seem to believe them; there’s dancing the streets; TV news showed a vast traffic jam of cars on the road to Damascus, exiles rushing back.
But I temper my optimism; the Middle East is a graveyard for such dreams; and the new lot in Syria aren’t, as Thomas Friedman says, boy scouts. I chide myself over my 2013 blog post titled “Egypt: A Very Democratic Coup,” when feckless President Morsi was ousted. That did not turn out well. And Tunisia, the one country that did seem to emerge from the Arab Spring with a serviceable democracy, now has a vile tyrant again.
History never does end; its path can be torturous. The October 7 attack on Israel, oddly, may have done for Assad, leading to Iran and Hezbollah no longer propping him up, while Russia’s military is preoccupied by Ukraine.
Syria’s dramatic events might, one would rationally suppose, present a great opportunity for Israel to reach out to the new regime with an olive branch, with friendly encouragement, even tangible help, to meliorate those two nations’ longtime enmity. Instead, Israel responds by attacking, massively bombing Syria. What are those people thinking??
Netanyahu is firmly ensconced on that villains poster of mine.