Joseph Eid/Agence France-Presse - Getty ImagesPresident Bashar al-Assad Syria has indicated willingness to implement major reforms, but time seems to out run.
CAIRO - President Bashar al-Assad Syria years has nourished a reputation as a teenager and he inherited from his father, future-oriented leader in a region full of aging autocrat, a man who could reform even the repressive police state given time and opportunity.
His country is worsening the crisis - a bloody battle between police and demonstrators, closely observed all over the world – his father seems a chance, stave off violence with restraint or even reforms, a path never took fat. But as the number of fatalities volumes, and the ominous disappearance of dissidents numbers increase, seems his time run. International pressure is growing, and so is the outrage which has inspired his violent suppression.
Mr Assad could still succeed in quelling the unrest, diplomats and analysts say. But, this to do he would recognize the hopes in him once inserted, as soon as he makes his father before 11 years inherited and confronted with his own family, which controls Syria thuggish security apparatus and seems too hard for a urge continued crackdown are must. At least 120 people were killed since Friday, the bloodiest day of the uprising five weeks old.
Mixed signals were created in the last day or two, of which, he will be the way. On the one hand, Mr Assad has indicated willingness, announced major reforms as the last week, when he officially Syria draconian emergency powers law repealed to enact. But there are dark warnings harder repression as well as. Notoriously opaque in Syria's political environment, it is impossible to say how the President is leaning.
"This is the moment of truth for Bashar al-Assad,", said Jean-Pierre Filiu, a visiting professor at Columbia University, has written in detail about Syria. "He may have the ability, reforms on his own Baath party, but he has the will to do?"
More than seen in one of the other revolts in the Middle East could significantly, maybe the consequences of his decision. In contrast to Egypt and Tunisia, Syria is home to a checkerboard floor of defensive religious and ethnic minorities, and many fear that at the end of the Assad family 40-year-dynasty brutal revenge killings and struggles for power could unleash. Chaos could easily spill over Syria's borders, in the neighbouring Lebanon and beyond.
The Obama administration has already Iran help to support, Mr Assad accused. When Syria fell, it would be a striking blow to the theocratic regime in Tehran and elsewhere has Syria that mark depended for its influence in the Israeli Palestinian conflict. But Iran's nemeses - including Israel, the United States and Saudi Arabia - are also deeply scared by the prospect of a change of regime in Syria that civil conflict could set from a chaotic Iraq style.
Even though Mr Assad survived, the turbulence have a profound impact on that, Middle East policy should some analysts say. "Our entire Syria policy for the last two and a half years is based on always Syria and Israel back on the table for peace,", said Andrew Tabler, analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East policy. "Now that the fuels Bashar Israel and the United States it has accused of this challenge is even more difficult to do it for him."
In a sense, Mr. Assad is now facing, the crisis is the same, which makes his years at the defined has: he has repeatedly hopes, both in the domestic and abroad, only inspired to let them. Western leaders courted him, in the hope he would his country democratizing, support peace with Israel, and more to the militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah. Syrian liberal enjoyed a short "Damascus Spring" the greater openness after his accession, but it soon disappeared. The illusions to promote helped his personal style. Other than his stern father Hafez al-Assad, who in a coup d ' état in the years 1970 took over Bashar al-Assad power quietly and almost meek seemed. He had studied ophthalmology in London, and an elegant British-born wife. He is fluent in English and French and widely read.
Even up to the last few weeks, "it was to see him separately by the regime, he could of his role, step a trend," said a Syria-based analyst, spoke under the condition of anonymity. But the patience seems finished. Calls for reform have transformed some of unheard until now in demands for an end to the Assad Government.
Like other autocrats, Mr Assad can be compensated by the reality of the uprising. Syrian State-run media have described as the work of agents provocateurs from Israel, Saudi Arabia and even Lebanon. Some diplomats, who know him personally say they believe Mr Assad understands what is happening - and what he needs to stop him to do - but is too slow or too shy to perform it.
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