He figured it out. Its apparent to most of us now that these ME dictators did protect their religious minorities, including Christians.
Even Sadaam did.
To be fair, their main political opponents were by definition the Muslim Sunni majority. Therefore they sought support wherever they could get it, including among religious minorities.
Assad and his family are Alawites, a minority branch of Shia, and therefore a minority of a minority in Syria and the Muslim world. Many Muslims don’t consider the Alawites to be Muslim at all.
The French, when they ruled Syria and Lebanon, played the same divide and conquer games. So a disproportionately large number of Alawites were recruited into the army and remained there after Syria became independent. Eventually they became powerful enough Assad was able to use them in a coup.