Sam Dagher

This is an interesting and well-written account of Bashar Al-Assad's complicity and crimes in the Syrian war. The sources have been carefully documented and they include a high-level defector who participated in the regime's first actions and several activists who were caught and tortured by the regime. A documentation of the atrocities perpetrated by Assad's mafia state will be no consolation to the millions of Syrians who continue to live under its rule, but at least it refutes the regime's own side of the story.

The first lesson of this book is that dictators whose life is at risk can be unbelievably evil in their attempt to avoid relinquishing power, especially if they still preside over a moderately effective army and police force. A second lesson is that Assad's butchering probably would have come to an end if he had been forced to rely only on his own thugs, but foreign help from Iran, Lebanon and Russia allowed him to gas enough children to stay in power.

The reasons why the international community failed to provide effective help to ordinary Syrians in Syria are complex to say the least, but Russia's right to veto any resolution in the UN security council ranks at the top of the list. It was also interesting to read how Assad abetted the spread of ISIS into Syria by withdrawing his troops (or at least their commanders). His subsequent campaign to promote himself in Europe as an anti-terrorist protector had baffling success when you consider that the primary cause of the refugee influx was Assad himself.

It may be the greatest tragedy of the 21st century that moderate Syrian rebels who only wanted to oust Assad and improve their living conditions did not achieve any of their goals. Ten years after the revolution started most of them are dead, their country is in ruins and Bashar Al-Assad's gang is still in charge. One can only hope that the good luck which sustained him through the revolution eventually runs out and that he will be prosecuted for his crimes before he dies of old age.… (meer)