Bashar Assad: The evil moron who's running Syria

Movies and comic books condition Americans to think in terms of the "evil genius," a dangerously insane but diabolically brilliant adversary who carefully and calculatingly plots to destroy the world. Think Lex Luthor attempting to obliterate the California coast, or the Joker scheming to poison Gotham, or the countless forgettable villains who have conspired to change the orbit of the moon in an effort to unleash destructive tidal waves that will destroy the Earth's major cities.

For better or worse, this archetype has spilled out of the realm of fantasy and into the real world, coloring how Americans view nonfiction villains as well as fictional ones. As David Plotz pointed out more than a year ago in Slate, "We always put a face to our misery. And every so often, we anoint some foreign malcontent as the arch-fiend responsible for all our global difficulties." Before Saddam, Osama. Before Osama, Saddam. And so on. But there's one problem with this worldview: In the real world, most evil men aren't geniuses. Instead, the real danger, more often than not, comes from evil morons.

Take Bashar Assad. Has there been a more disastrous geopolitical move in recent years than the 38-year-old Syrian president's decision to cast his lot with Saddam just prior to Iraq's stunning military defeat? Before the war, Syria had actually done quite a bit to improve its standing in the eyes of the United States. It cooperated in the war against al-Qaida, sharing the intelligence it gained from interrogations of Muhammad Haydar Zammar, the man suspected of recruiting Mohamed Atta to carry out the 9/11 attacks. In addition, Syria supported the Saudi plan for peace with Israel. And it may not sound like much, but Assad denounced the 9/11 attacks, while Saddam (less smartly) praised them.

Now it appears that Assad may have gambled all of that away. By foolishly providing moral and material support to Iraq during the war—and, the administration says, now by harboring high-ranking Iraqi officials—he's created an environment that makes it possible for a Democratic presidential candidate (Florida Sen. Bob Graham) to openly support war with Syria. Already some hawks are pointing to the tantalizing parallels between Saddam's Iraq and Assad's Syria. Weapons of mass destruction? Check. Support for terrorism? Check. Repressive domestic intelligence services? Check. The comparisons go further: Both countries were ruled by tyrannical men who are not members of the ethnic majority. (Saddam was a Sunni who ruled over a largely Shiite country, and Assad is an Alawite who rules over a Sunni majority.) To top things off, Syria even has a Baath Party and a Republican Guard. No one expects war anytime soon, but Assad's stupidity has put the subject on the table.

When Assad came to power in June 2000, one week after the death of his father, Hafez Assad, many hoped that his ties to the West—the two years in London he spent training to become an ophthalmologist, his facility with English, his British-born Syrian wife—would make him a different kind of dictator. He was part of what Slate dubbed the "Arab Brat Pack," young rulers that were thought to be earnest technocrats, not ideological demagogues. But Assad's tenure as president has demonstrated that surfing the Internet doesn't make you a reformer.

While Assad's Syria isn't as repressive as Saddam's Iraq, it's still the kind of place where democratic dissidents get jailed. Assad has also proven to be wildly and vocally anti-Semitic. Less than a year after coming to power, he declared that Israelis "try to kill the principles of all religions with the same mentality with which they betrayed Jesus Christ and in the same way they tried to kill the prophet Muhammad." He also said the election of Ariel Sharon proved that Israel was "a racist society, even more racist than the Nazis." When he came under international criticism for the remarks, he remarked, "I was talking about Israelis, not Jews."

Comments like those create the worry that Assad is not just pandering when he attacks the war in Iraq as a Zionist plot: He may actually believe it. Recently, the Jerusalem Post floated two other possibilities to explain Assad's head-scratching decision to support Saddam: Either Bashar is "not rational," or his plan is "designed not only to eventually tighten his grip on power in Damascus, but ensure the U.S. will not turn their smart bombs and bunker-busters on him next." In other words, Assad is either insane, or he's a genius. But there's a third possibility: He's rational, but he's also an idiot. Meaning, Assad believes he is acting in his own self-interest, but he's badly misjudged what his self-interest is.

Saddam, after all, surely thought he was acting in his own self-interest all the time, too. But if he had been better at gauging what was actually his best course of action, he might not have invited two catastrophic wars with the United States upon his country and his regime.

So, in the short run, you can see why Assad could think his gamble has paid off. His anti-American and anti-Israel rhetoric has endeared him to both Arab nationalists and Islamic radicals in his country and in the region. "He's now the most important Arab leader," says Amatzia Baram, a professor of Middle East history at the University of Haifa.

But if Assad is now the most popular figure in the Middle East among Arabs of an anti-American stripe, it's worth noting that before Assad, that figure was Saddam. For Assad's sake, and for ours, let's hope Assad is smart enough to remember how that turned out.Chris Suellentrop is Slate's deputy Washington bureau chief. You can e-mail him at suellentrop@slate.com.

Article URL: http://slate.msn.com/id/2081612/

Holy smokes!

US special forces make startling discovery! Comedian Andy Kaufman is alive and well and living a comfortable life as the dictator of Syria!

I am Andy

We are both Andy!

Denk you berri much

Eebee da! Eebee da! Denk you berry much.

Freep Exclusive...

Friday 5AM Washington-As impossible as it may seem, sources at the Pentagon have indeed confirmed to Freerepublic.com earlier this morning that Syrian Dictator Bashar Assad is none other than the late legendary comedian Andy Kaufman, the mega superstar of such hit TV shows as "Taxi"and "Saturday night live"

Kaufman, whose meteoric rise to mega stardom and world domination was the basis for the movie "Man on the Moon" that starred a ridiculously miscast Jim Carey a few years back instead of the obvious choice of James Earl Jones, was found alive and well yesterday living in opulence as "Bashar Assad" ruler of Syria.

Bashar Assad, a name Kaufman claimed was initially suppose to be pronounced "Bash your ass hard" explained that he indeed faked his own death and hid out for years in shame after losing his Intergender World Wrestling Championship belt in a secret match with Janet Reno. "Janet was a lot younger and more masculine back then" explained Kaufman, "Back then she had a full grown beard and a deeper voice and she pinned me to the floor in a matter of seconds like I was a French man in full battle mode which humiliated me to no end."

In what has got to be one of the greatest hoaxes of all time, Kaufman explained that he couldn`t bear to show his face in the public arena anymore after being so humiliated, so he devised an elaborate scheme whereas he would fake his own death and escape to the tranquility of the middle east. "It sounded a lot better than Manhattan at the time." he expained, "I had this weird premonition that this vile witch from Arkansas was going to become a Senator in New York even though she never lived in New York, or never worked in New York, or was even elected to a public office, and had more scandals than vandals with sandals. I think I was just a little too neurotic at the time because obviously no one would ever vote for a person like that, I mean could you imagine if people ever got that low on the IQ scale? Impossible, but I just had this terrible Armageddon like feeling so I went to Syria."

How Kaufmans ruse was discovered is a story in itself that`s stranger than a fictitious Michael Moore movie. While US special forces were conducting searches with their deck of cards in Syria for the "Iraqs most wanted" gang who may have fled over the border, members of the team were shocked when closing in on the quarters of the Syrian dictator Bashar Assad. Coming around a corner they suddenly heard the theme song from the "Mighty Mouse" cartoon . Thinking it odd that such a rare and old American cartoon theme song should be playing in of all places Syria, they closed in with cards ready. What they saw they was shocking to say the least.

"We couldn`t believe what we were seeing when we looked in the window" said squad commander Vic Ferrare. "There was a man standing by a record player playing the old Mighty Mouse song, doing absolutely nothing but just standing there still and staring at us looking like a little kid. But suddenly when the "here I come to save the day" part came up, he suddenly flew into action, swinging his arm up and miming the words like he was a super hero or something!. It was just totally insane! We were thinking to ourselves "Oh another dictator who thinks he`s Superman, what a suprise!" It was then that special agent CIA operative Tony Clifton remembered seeing something similar to this years ago on a Saturday night live show. "And then it just hit me.." he said. "It was Andy Kaufman! I couldn`t believe it, but I was sure of it!" Special forces then immediately told Mr. Kaufman aka Bashar Assad to hit the deck as they checked their decks to see if they had a card on him. It was confirmed. Andy Kaufman had pulled one of the greatest hoaxes of all time, and now it was over.

Later in one scene that was not at all suprising, as expected, Jacques Ch-Iraq of France came barging in making kissing noises at the dictator but then seemed to get visibly annoyed when Kaufman pulled his world renowned "Latka Gravis" act on him.

"What eez theez "eebee-dah"? I don`t understand theeze "eebee-da"! `Ow can I properly kiss zee Dictators arse if I don`t know what ze "eebee da" eez?

Assad's mistake is that he is too closely aligned to France. All else eminates from this mistaken political and economic arrangement. Just as the US replaced the USSR as the chief arms dealer in Egypt in the 1970's, so too can we replace France as source of revenue. If it is not about money but more about power, then war may be the price of piece in the Mid East. Syria has placed herself against peace for Israel, occupying Lebannon and providing a huge creasant of military pressure upon Israel extending in Afarat's terror-itory as well. Removing Syria would make the PA unable to sustain terrorism, and it would be a nice pay back to France for the 1979 Iranian Revolution, especially since it seems likely 2004 will find Iran once again free from French meddeling and a much more faovralbe US infulence (the students and the Nobel Peace Prize seem to indicate change).

Assad is a pawn of many different groups within his country and is not really anything more than a figure head, and terror is the tool by which he balances political supermancy. French diplomacy is behind this to the end.

The US really needs reassess its desire to outwait Chiraq and the liberal French "de Gaulist" government and make a practical move to counter with great fanfare in the press and economic-political-military manners all French interests in an honest attempt to effect regime change which would effect a freer French people who do not have a leadership who is aligned with mostly repressive regimes. France advocates a repressive government stance on all Eurozone initiatives - they are very undemocratic and do require removal.

If American politicians find it necessary to discuss another war, it should be to root out the cause, e.g., France rather than the symptom, e.g., Syria and Arab terrorism.

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