Bashar Assad: Powerful Leader? Empty Vessel?

NewsPundit.net ^ | 3/13/2005 | Barbara Slavin

[ex-Texan]

WASHINGTON — His father ran a brutal regime but earned grudging respect for knowing when and how to make deals, as in 1991 when he joined the U.S.-led coalition that expelled Iraq from Kuwait. * * *

Martin Indyk, a former assistant secretary of State who met many times with Hafez Assad and spent three hours with Bashar Assad a year ago, calls him an "enigma" and an "ingénue" who appears to be not entirely in control of his own government.

Surrounded by holdovers from his father's 30-year rule and Alawites from Syria's ruling religious sect, Assad is "an empty vessel," says Danielle Pletka, a Middle East expert at the conservative American Enterprise Institute in Washington.

* * *

[ex-Texan]

Read more about Junior Assad Here. Personally, I believe Bahar Assad is not even in control of his own government. Bathist Nazis run Syria and their 'pull out' from Lebanon is just orchastrated propaganda. Syria's gestapo is deeply entrenched in Lebanon. Coming next, according to Lebanese I have talked to here, is another Civil War.

[mewzilla]

Powerful leader? Empty vessel?

Ferret Face.

[Sonny M]

This kid never wanted to lead this country, if his older brother hadn't died, Assad would be out practising medicine in europe,

If there was ever a case to be made for democracy, he is it.