For almost a decade he was a pariah who struggled to get a meeting abroad or even to assert himself on his visitors. Largely alone in his palace, save for trusted aides, Bashar al-Assad presided over a broken state whose few friends demanded a humiliating price for their protection, and weren’t afraid to show it.
The Observer: Assad the outcast being sold to the West as key to peace in Middle East
Syrians walk in front of a poster of President Bashar al-Assad near the Grand Umayyad Mosque in Damascus on Sept. 23, 2021.
