Assad is no longer pure evil, he’s now being called the lesser evil

Clearly, the Syrian president has not turned over a new leaf. It’s just that there is no credible alternative that can assume the responsibility to rebuild a shattered Syria. After six years of war, he is the sole survivor

Sole survivor or mass murderer? I shared Santhosh Kumar’s dilemma when he sat down to sketch Syrian President Bashar Al Assad. The chief illustrator wasn’t sure how to portray him, nor was I on how to make sense of the madness that gripped Syria for six years and has now come to an end.

I remember when the conflict in the country was at its height three years ago and hundreds were gassed by chemical-tipped surface-to-surface missiles. Santhosh’s palette was flush with demonic hues then and Assad was painted (and tainted) black, batlike and blood-sucking — pure evil. Dictators like him did deserve to be brushed away. They got the treatment — on our pages. But this time it was different, and the artist was working longer than he usually did for the right effect.

He wasn’t certain about Assad, the only surviving leader from the events of 2011 when despots, military rulers and dictators like Ben Ali in Tunisia, Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi and Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak were swept aside in a series of pro-democracy movements called the Arab Spring that shook the very foundations of politics in the region and upset the status quo for many strongmen.

I’m told it’s not politically correct to call it Arab Spring anymore — I’m grappling with Arab Revolution, Arab Winter and Arab Awakening. Truth is, it was a Spring that turned into a winter of discontent and came a cropper. There was no harvest for democracy. What began as a youth movement in Tunisia with the self-immolation of a young man fizzled out when the extremist Muslim Brotherhood hijacked the protests, came to power in Egypt, and unleased a wave of violence and chaos that saw the return of a military government. Mubarak and Ben Ali made it alive, while Gaddafi met a brutal death at the hands of militia opposed to him. After the tumult, only Tunisia trod the path of democracy.

Assad didn’t want to meet that fate and went after the opposition, ruthlessly. In that the doctor-turned-dictator was different. He survived the militant surge with a purge and is now in charge. Santhosh decided to give him a veneer of respectability through this portrait, not because Assad is a star warrior but because the conflict and suffering has ended for ordinary Syrians. He was a winner of circumstance. The ‘There is No Alternative’ (TINA) factor worked in his favour.

The illustration is striking. Assad looking ruthless, even respectable. It’s hard to imagine he’s still there after 500,000 people died in the conflict under his watch. Unimaginable atrocities were committed by both by forces opposed to the government and by the Syrian military. Videos and pictures of the foes resorting to cannibalism in the throes of victory went viral. It filled us with disgust. The war fanned an exodus which displaced six million in the country and forced five million to flee to other shores. The regime claims that people are returning to their homes now that there’s peace and quiet, but I won’t take the dictator’s word for it. One reason for the bad doctor’s staying power was the emergence of Daesh, a terror group like no other that the world has seen. They entered the fray in Syria to oust the regime and their proclamations of a Caliphate had some takers. They were funded and supplied with arms by unknown backers. There is no clear answer to this day who was behind their rise. Their brutalities were manifold. They enslaved, cut off heads and maimed innocents. And they were tech-savvy, posting gory videos on social media. It was like a horror scene straight out of the dark ages.

To Assad’s credit, he had warned the United States during the heat of battle that Syria could turn into another Afghanistan if terror groups like Daesh and Al Qaeda were not stopped. No one listened to him. As he began losing territory, the US feared he would resort to any means to stay on in power. And he did so by gassing his own people. Then US President Obama warned of red lines, but Assad gleefully crossed them. Syria was a lost cause to the West as it lacked Iraq’s or Libya’s resources. This gave the Russians, Iranians and the Lebanese Hezbollah a window of opportunity which they exploited well.

There were too many players in the country, tearing it apart. Assad’s forces, rebels like the Free Syrian Army backed by the US, terrorists like Daesh and Al Qaeda; the Lebanese Hezbollah; Russian troops, Iranian Revolutionary Guards, and others. The Kurds, meanwhile, were waging their own battles against Daesh. Turkey turned against Assad and let fighters cross into Syria only to regret it when refugees came flooding back.

Russian air power was the turning point in the conflict two years ago. It swung the war in Assad’s favour after he had outsourced it to the Iranians and Hezbollah on the ground. Some reports say the Syrian President is in control of 83 per cent of the country. Other reports say that he has 50 per cent. What he will do with the territory after the devastation is anybody’s guess.

Which brings us back to the caricature. Assad is a winner by default. Friends like Iran, Hezbollah and Russia have kept him in power. I won’t go so far as to call him a puppet, but he’s the only credible force left in Syria whose people are weary of war and simply want to get on with their lives. He’s transformed from pure evil to the lesser evil there. I think our illustration is spot on. What do you think?