Assad or We Burn the Country: How One Family's Lust for Power Destroyed Syria by Sam DagherMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Of all the tragic events that became known collectively as the Arab Spring, the Syrian Civil War is perhaps the most tragic, the most well known, and the least understood. For one brief, shining moment, it appeared that a new Middle East was possible free of dictatorships and terror. Syria seemed on the brink of change only for its ruthless dictator, Bashar al-Assad, to deem survival worth any cost, event the lives of thousands of his own people, millions of refugees, and a resurgence of Islamic extremist terror groups across the region and the world. In this detailed account, Mr. Dagher takes his reader into the inner sanctum of the Assad regime, the protest movement, the international community, and the rebellion to give one of the most complete accounts of the Syrian regime, its origins, and the series of events that led to such a brutal civil war.
To fully understand the conflict, Mr. Dagher takes the reader all the way back to the origins of the modern Syrian state and the rise of Hafez al-Assad, Bashar's father and the dictator of Syrian from the 1970s until his death in 2000. Sadly, the roots of Syria's trouble lie in the lies and fears that make up the Assad regime from the very beginning, with a foundation soaked in blood as Haze also ruthlessly put down challenges to his rule too. All throughout, Mr. Dagher follows the Tlass clan starting with Mustafa Tlass and then his son Manaf as they assist the Assads' rise to power. Through the Tlass', and Manaf especially, we get a clearer picture of the inner workings of the regime and how duplicitous and ruthless Bashar and others were in deciding to violently suppress peaceful protestors as the Arab Spring reaches Syria. Because of Bashar's choice to stay in power at all costs, Syria soon devolves into a morass of blood and death with international powers either looking on rousing the Syrian people to further their own agendas. It's a tragedy that only gets more tragic as it goes along.
This book really helped clarify what was always a complicated topic for me. Mr. Dagher never wavers from pointing nearly all of the blame at Bashar al-Assad, but he also makes sure to point figures at all the international figures who looked on or actively assisted the Assad regime slaughter its own people. The only thing I have against this book is that the narrative begins to lose steam once (view spoiler). From that point on, the end seems inevitable, but the tragedies continue to pile on top of each other.
The Syrian Civil War is one of the greatest tragedies of the Arab Spring and the 21st century so far. With moral clarity and inside information, Mr. Dagher has written an account that should not be missed.
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