I was just pondering about the life of Bashar al-Assad and then it hit me. It was kind of like a deja vu. I had to think really hard but it wasn't as clear as I thought I could make it just relying on memories so, here I am again on Wikipedia checking out the story of Bashar al-Assad.
Bashar al- Assad born September 11 1965, succeeded his father Hafez al-Assad as President of Syria and Regional Secretary of the Syrian led branch of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party. He graduated from medical school of the University of Damascus in 1988 and started to work as a physician in the army.
In 1994, his elder brother Bassel, heir apparent to their father was killed in a car crash. Bashir was recalled from London back to Syria to take over Bassel's role. He entered the military academy and took charge of the Syrian occupation of Lebanon in 1998. In December 2000 he got married to Asma Assad formerly Asma Akhras. He was elected as President of Syria in 2000 and 2007 unopposed each time.
Unlike his brothers, Bassel and Shabbih Maher and his sister Bushra, Bashar was quiet and reserved and lacked any interest in politics or the military. He claims he only entered his father's office once while he as in power and he never spoke about politics with him.
Well, okay now, doesn't this look like the script from the movie "The GodFather" starring Al Pacino and Marlon Brando. Al Pacino as Micheal Corleone was born to the Godfather Don Corleone (Marlon Brando) and unlike his brothers and sister and just like Bashar al Assad he was very quiet and reserved.
He had no interest in the Mafia nor in its workings. He was a complete civilian living amidst gangsters. However, this was to change when his elder brother Sonny (Santino) whom his father had been grooming to take over from him was ambushed and massacred in his car by gunmen (Bassel died in a car crash). Michael hurried back to his father's side to make sure that he took care of the old man because an attempt had been made on his life sometime earlier.
The death of Santino (Bassel; [who Hafez had been grooming to take over]), saw to Micheal (Bashar) taking over Santino's role since much like Fredo Corleone, Shabbih Maher was incompetent and hence was passed over for that role.
Now, we all know that Don Michael Corleone was a very calculative man (considering that apart from his perfect understanding of the rules of he Mafia game, he also had military experience and had been to college).
The problem with this al-Assad movie is that the main actor has decided to deviate from the script of his puppet masters. Note that it is stated that"He was expected to take a more liberal approach than his father".
This indicates that his puppet masters had some expectation of what the wanted him to do or had programmed him to do but al-Assad had his own opinion of things and would thus not follow the script any longer since he believed that he had played the game in such a way as to guarantee that even if his puppet masters ware no longer in support of his regime, he would not be overthrown.
You can conveniently glean this fact from his statement to the Wall Street Journal where he said he considers himself "anti-Israel" and "anti-West" and that because of these policies he was not in danger of being overthrown.
This al-Assad movie seems to me to be something more like the Godfather script gone wrong. I don't know if there are portions from any other movie(s) adapted by the script writers and puppet masters in the writing of the al-Assad story but you certainly can see that al-Assad's actions are nothing short of a rebellion against his former masters cum supporters cum script writers.
It a few days time, I would try to move you to the deviations made by al-Assad from the script of his former puppeteers and how he has fallen into the hands of a new set of puppet masters.
See you soon!!!!