From doctor to brutal dictator: the rise and fall of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad

At first glance, Bashar al-Assad in 2002 seemed like a completely different person compared to the harsh dictator he later turned into, ruling over a fragile nation built on torture, imprisonment, and mass killings.

He had only been in office for two years at that time, having taken over from his father, Hafez, who was infamous for his ruthless actions.

For a time, the awkward ex-eye doctor, who pursued his medical studies in London and subsequently wed Asma, a British-Syrian investment banker at JP Morgan, was eager to demonstrate to the world that Syria could take a new direction under his guidance.

In an effort to connect with the western world, he launched a public relations initiative aimed at portraying the young Assad family as relatable and normal, despite their luxurious residences and the constant presence of oppressive measures.

In the year before Bashar's official trip to the UK, which was set up by then-Prime Minister Tony Blair as the peak of that diplomatic relationship, I had the opportunity to meet with Assad for a private coffee. He was seated on a white sofa, dressed in a sharply tailored suit.

Expressing a hint of uncertainty, he wondered about the global perception of Syria, considering potential shifts that might lead to a change in the dynamics between Damascus and Israel.

The portrayal was a crafted version of the Assads, showcasing Asma's praised charitable efforts and Bashar’s short-lived acceptance by the West. This suggested a desire to reshape Hafez's Syria into something resembling the more polished and publicity-savvy royal family of Jordan. However, despite the changes, it remained a dictatorship.

During the discussion, Bashar casually mentioned a disturbing remark while he was pondering the 9/11 attacks carried out by al-Qaida the previous year and the resulting American military intervention in Afghanistan.

Bashar emphasized that it was important for everyone to understand that his father had been justified in his harsh methods of dealing with Islamist rebels from the very beginning.

Twenty-two years later, Bashar has been ousted from power by a faction of al-Qaida. With the dramatic conclusion of half a century of Assad rule, a significant part of the Middle Eastern landscape has been completely transformed.

Even before the Arab Spring began to test and shape his leadership, Bashar al-Assad’s Syria – similar to Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya – was a nation where a large security force was always around. Agents could be seen monitoring activities in markets, at taxi stands, and on street corners.

Disregarding the idea of democracy being suitable for Syria, Bashar's first reform proposal was to focus on economic changes before making any political adjustments. He aimed to shift away from unpopular state monopolies to a free-market system, but ultimately this shift favored a select group of insiders.

His political ideology, as it would turn out, closely mirrored that of his father’s. It revolved around a strong, personal dictatorship that placed significant power in the hands of the military, particularly the air force, as well as the intelligence services.

At the outset, an unnamed European diplomat suggested that the situation in Syria resembled a "dictatorship without a dictator," implying doubts about the true authoritarian nature of the regime. However, it quickly became clear what he embodied—he ultimately became a dictator himself.

In 2001, Bashar granted freedom to several political prisoners, primarily those affiliated with communism, during a presidential pardon aimed at showing Western nations that Syria was evolving. However, this move was largely superficial. In reality, arrests continued unabated, and the status quo remained unchanged.

In the face of the Syrian uprising in 2011, the regime's facade completely fell away, revealing its readiness to systematically detain, torture, and kill countless individuals. This brutal campaign resulted in the deaths of nearly 13,000 people at Sednaya prison, infamously referred to as the “Human Slaughterhouse,” between 2011 and 2015.

Despite efforts to improve the image of the Assads, which would last until around 2011 — including a glamorous feature on Asma in Vogue, portraying her as the so-called “Rose in the Desert” — Bashar's reign turned out to be even more brutal than that of his father.

Hafez, an officer in the air force and a member of the Ba’ath party, was one of the key figures in the 1963 military coup that led to the rise of the Ba’ath party in Syria. He was the one who initially shaped the values of the Assad family, and Bashar later took those values to their ultimate expression.

In 1966, amidst the Hama uprising, Hafez articulated a belief that would shape the Assad family’s ideology and foreshadow the brutal massacres that would occur during his regime and that of his son. He declared that any form of dissent must be met with harsh and violent repression.

For Hafez, this would fully manifest after he took absolute control through another coup, progressively positioning his Alawite minority at the heart of a pervasive police state. This involved the harsh suppression of a revolt by the Muslim Brotherhood that started in the mid-1970s, ultimately leading to the tragic Hama massacre in 1982.

Countless prisoners were killed. Members of the Muslim Brotherhood and their relatives were targeted and eliminated. In February 1982, Hama experienced devastating land and air attacks that left thousands dead. This brutal strategy was one that Bashar and his brother Maher would adopt with equal fervor.

Bashar may have appeared different at first because he wasn't originally meant to take over from Hafez. That responsibility was supposed to go to his brother Bassel, who tragically died in a car accident in 1994. Following this event, Bashar, who had shown little interest in politics while living in London, was brought back to Syria and personally trained by Hafez in how to wield power.

By 2011, with the start of the Arab Spring, the carefully managed portrayal of Bashar and his family as a friendlier alternative to the Hafez era—complete with weekends spent watching Western movies in their private cinema and dining out in restaurants in Damascus—had completely disappeared.

What started as occasional protests against the Assad regime quickly escalated into a full-blown revolution by March. The government's reaction was harsh and violent. Security forces led by Maher opened fire on protesters as part of a systemic approach to suppress dissent, while heavily armed pro-government groups, known as shabiha, started acting as death squads.

Over the years, Bashar would revisit the same reasoning he used in 2002 to defend his father: he argued that all the violence was geared towards a "war on terror," even at one point labeling the casualties caused by his own security forces as unavoidable sacrifices.

In 2012, a year later, WikiLeaks published a significant number of hacked emails that revealed details about Bashar al-Assad, his family, and their connections in the region. These leaks offered a unique glimpse into the Assads' lives in Damascus, showcasing Asma's purchases of luxury jewelry in Paris and the public relations consultants suggesting ways for the regime to present an image of reform while continuing its violent repression.

One of the most significant discoveries that year was Bashar's active role in approving daily orders for the ongoing violence, even while a feeling of surrealness hung in the air. This prompted Asma’s father, who lived in Britain, to wonder if it was wise to hold a New Year’s Eve party for the couple while Syrians were being killed.

Although Bashar's hold on power appeared shaky during that time, with global demands for him to resign, various influences would come into play, allowing him to maintain his position. Syria then descended into a prolonged civil war that resulted in 500,000 deaths and left half of its population displaced.

One reason for this shift in focus was the rise of the self-declared caliphate established by the Islamic State in Raqqa, a city in northern Syria, in 2013. The brutal actions of these militants overshadowed the atrocities committed by Bashar al-Assad's forces, drawing global attention away from the Assad regime. This occurred even as Damascus started using chemical weapons in assaults on opposition strongholds, with particularly infamous attacks in Khan al-Assal and Ghouta during that same year.

Disputes have persisted for years regarding whether Assad directly commanded the attacks, often fueled by intelligence findings. However, a report from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, issued last year to mark the tenth anniversary of the two Ghouta attacks, was unequivocal. They asserted that even less significant attacks had received his personal endorsement and were part of the government's official strategy.

The "red line" established by former US President Barack Obama regarding Syria's use of chemical weapons was meant to be a measure of global determination. However, in the end, it didn't lead to any major consequences, even as other powers began to fill the void left behind.

The initial action was Vladimir Putin's choice to send Russian troops to support Assad. This move was a calculated attempt to strengthen Moscow's position and assert its significant influence in the broader Middle East region.

Iran took strong action to safeguard its investment in Hezbollah in neighboring Lebanon. It dispatched advisers and supported the deployment of Hezbollah fighters to assist the Assad regime, helping to stabilize the governance in the territories under its control.

Bashar maintained his flair for theatrics by staging fake elections in territories he dominated in 2014, promoting a theme of "unity." By the following year, however, his forces only held onto 25% of Syria.

Despite everything, Bashar al-Assad managed to remain in power. This was notable even when Donald Trump, during his first term as president, launched a strike against a Syrian airbase in 2017 in response to a chemical weapons attack in Khan Sheikhoun.

What kept Bashar going during those years ultimately led to his downfall: a fundamentally failing state reliant on outside forces and susceptible to various circumstances. This was especially true with Moscow's focus shifting towards Ukraine and the weakening of Tehran's support network following Israel's recent attacks on Hezbollah.

Hassan Hassan, the editor-in-chief of New Lines and a prominent Syria expert, stated that Assad's downfall was not solely due to a strategically organized jihadist offensive. Rather, it resulted from 13 years of civil conflict that left his military in ruins and his troops dispirited.

Syria has been divided into fragmented regions due to competing influences from Turkey and the United States in the northern and eastern parts of the country. Meanwhile, other areas have come under the influence of Iran and Russia, who played a crucial role in reclaiming Aleppo and overcoming rebels supported by the West in southern Syria.

In the final days of his leadership, Bashar kept making bold promises, insisting he would defeat the rebels as they rapidly approached Damascus. Ultimately, decades of Assad's rule collapsed in an instant.