Amazing Arabs: Bashar al-Assad

Amazing Arabs

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Bashar Hafiz al-Assad, the democratically elected President of Syria, the blue-eyed opthalmologist whose altruism, nationalism and love for public service made him leave his comfortable 9 to 5 job as an eye surgeon and took a pay cut to work as Syria's President, is Pivazistan's pick for "Amazing Arabs." Contrary to popular belief, the fact that his father had served as President had absolutely nothing to do with why he became President. Dr. Bashar became President simply because he wanted to.

The young Assad is better than his father in that he doesn't silence the opposition by creating an environment where opposition is almost impossible, he allows oppositionists to surface and then eradicates them by, well killing them. He's a staunch supporter of Lebanon, a region he rightly considers to be a mere part of Syria.

When Bashar was the first son of Syria, he did me a favor by helping bring the Internet to the country, something he now regrets.

He's not an ordinary Arab leader because this one plays with the region's big dogs, he follows his father's policy vis-a-vis the Islamic Republic of Iran, that of a strategic alliance. He hates the Saudi royals or as he likes to call them, "dirty Sunnis." In 2005 he shook the region by ordering the nation's Intelligence service to murder the Saudi puppet, Rafiq al-Hariri, an event which he denies in public but jokes about in private.

Bashar al-Assad is now playing with the biggest dog of them all, the "illigitimate child of the age," a phrase his father coined for the Jewish state of Israel. Syria and Israel are due to begin peace talks in the near future.

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