Asma Al-Assad is the power behind Bashar’s throne
ASMA Al-Assad’s biggest mistake was to have been born a woman. While Bashar al-Assad approves use of extreme violence against his countrymen, the press guns for his British-born wife.
Having read Vogue’s hagiography to the Asma slender ankle (with apology)- no GQ repot on Bashar’s preference for the sack, crack and back – the Telegraph looks though the couple’s apparently leaked emails and notes that “Mrs Assad, 36, displays no misgivings about the regime’s bloody crackdown, which has accounted for most of the estimated 8,000 lives lost”.
Well, quite. As Asma’s wedding vows might have gone: “In sickness and in health, in times of mass murder and State-sanctioned rape, when you can’t find the remote control or your Right Said Fred LP and blame me, I do take thee to be my lawfully wedded wife.”
Asma did not order the killings. But she has yet to murder her husband in his sleep, flee the country or publicly call him a bastard.
We see the contents of what is presented as an email sent by Asma to a family friend on Jan 10. SHe says her husband right to be “very strong, no more messing around”.
On Jan 17, she circulated an email cracking a joke at the expense of the people of Homs… “Student who obtained 0% on an exam”.
It contained one of those lists of jokes that circulate widely on the internet, in the form of questions with silly answers. The first was: “In which battle did Napoleon die? – His last battle”.
The next day she forwarded the email to her father and two other family members with the changed subject line: “A really bright Homsi student!”
And on December 14, Asma wrote:
“As for listening – I am the REAL dictator, he has no choice …” she wrote on Dec 14.
Says the Telegraph:
Her use of the word in reference to her husband suggests she understands how others regard him.
Well, yes. She has access to the Internet. He can read all all manner of opinions on her husband.
Mrs Assad comes across as comfortable with the middle class English world in which she grew up as the daughter of a cardiologist in Acton. The mother of three, who went to university in London, chats affectionately with her family, receives shopping offers from John Lewis, and speculates about potential overseas holidays with friends.
But where’s her crime? She says he loves her husband. She wrote:
“If we are strong together, we will overcome this together … I love you …”
This is the woman who married into a dynasty of despots. She married Bashar in December 2000. He was meant to be an optician,. But his elder brother Basil died in 1994. Bashar is the spare heir who became King.
Asma will love her man to the bitter end. She might yet be tragic…
Posted: 19th, March 2012 | In: Politicians Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
