You’re Bashar al-Assad, and It’s All Going Downhill in Syria

You’re Bashar al-Assad and it wasn’t supposed to turn out like this.  Your dad spent decades confounding the Americans and he sent you away to London to become an eye doctor…and now here you are,  the ruler of your country since 2000 and no matter where you turn, things are looking grim. Protesters keep having the nerve to challenge your authority, so you order your security forces to shoot at them. Not with rubber bullets, but with real ones, they draw blood, and yet they keep on challenging you. Seventy were killed last week, yet the protests continue. Why won’t they stop?

The Americans keep saying that you’re the key to Middle East peace, and yet, like your father, you never, ever agree to go along with them, and secretly cheered when the terrorists blew up the Twin Towers. No matter what you never side with Israel, just like dad, and yet they press you with money and say good things about you thinking that someday you’ll change. You won’t. You will always hate the Jews.

Over in Egypt, they toppled a guy who you thought would be the dictator forever, just like you would. And in Tunisia, your friend Ben Ali, driven out, how could that have happened?  Maybe he should have shot the protesters like you did, acted decisively and all. Now Syria is full of so-called “democracy advocates” who are willing to take bullets and die and you still have Senator Kerry saying nice things about you.

Why don’t these people stop asking you to step down? What is it that they want? Do they think the deserve to be free, and vote for your successor?