Bashar al-Assad: Global Pariah

"When Bashar Assad inherited power in Syria in 2000, many saw him as a youthful new president in a region of aging dictators – a fresh face who could transform his father's stagnant dictatorship into a modern state ready to engage with the world.

Now, the bloody government backlash has extinguished the once-popular image of Assad as a reformer struggling against members of his late father's old guard.

With calls for his resignation last week from Washington to Tokyo, the Arab Spring has forced Assad to face the most severe isolation of his family's four-decade rule. And the events of the past five months have dashed any lingering hopes that he would change one of the most repressive states in the world.

There is little sign that the 45-year-old Assad will manage to crush the protests that are shaking his regime. But even if he does, his newfound status as a global pariah stands to devastate his country of 22 million people, undermine stability in the Middle East and affect the role of Iran, Syria's ally, on the world stage.

"Power is an aphrodisiac, and as the old saying goes, it corrupts absolutely," said David W. Lesch, an American expert on Syria who wrote a 2005 biography of Bashar Assad. "In the end, he became more of a product of his environment rather than a transformational figure who could change that environment.""

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/21/bashar-assad-syrian-leader_n_932353.html?ir=Canada