Assad a ruthless dictator — Washington Post

WASHINGTON, JUNE 11: Syrian President Hafez al-Assad was excoriated by a leading US newspaper as a ruthless despot with few virtues. &quot...

WASHINGTON, JUNE 11: Syrian President Hafez al-Assad was excoriated by a leading US newspaper as a ruthless despot with few virtues. "Historians will have to scour the record to find any positive traits," the Washington Post wrote in an editorial Sunday of the Syrian leader, who died Saturday at the age of 69.

"But he did embody a perverse sort of reliability. Usually, this too functioned as a negative: He was reliably intransigent, reliably hostile to Israel and reliably supportive of terrorism," the daily wrote.

The Post editorial continued: "Mr Assad’s reliability, it was sometimes argued, might have boded well for the stability of any peace agreement he might have signed with Israel … He could, many Israelis believed, bring Syria to a stable peace."

But the daily took issue with those optimistic assessments. "Chances are Mr Assad never would have made the trip; he had passed up plenty of opportunities."

The likely succession of Assad by his son Bashar al-Assad "could herald a modification of Syria’s internal authoritarianism and of the inflexibility of its foreign policy," the daily wrote. But the most immediate effect of his death in the short run, is to derail the possibility of Israeli-Syrian peace talks. "This in turn ensures that Israel will focus its attention on negotiating a final status arrangement with the Palestinians."

"The important thing," the Post continued, "while the transition in Syria takes place, is to maintain the quiet along the Israeli-Lebanese border that has persisted since Israel withdrew its troops from Lebanon last month."