Assad’s Detachment Reveals Life in Cocoon - Bloomberg

Assad’s Detachment Reveals Life in Cocoon - Bloomberg

clipped from article:
Ten months into Syria’s unrest, those who know President Bashar al-Assad say there’s good reason he has outlasted other leaders threatened by the Arab Spring uprisings: stone-hearted detachment.

This trait was evident to the public when the Syrian president broke his silence and gave an interview to ABC News, broadcast Dec. 7, in which he refused to accept responsibility for the violence, according to a former friend, Abdel Nour, who first met Assad as a college student in 1984.

Assad “lives in a cocoon” and opts not to see the reports of torture and killings alleged to have occurred since mid- March, when the protests began, Nour said in an interview.

“He wants to deal with things with a cool mind,” Nour said.

As the death toll in Syria passes 5,000, according to United Nations estimates, the international community is increasing economic and political pressure on Assad’s government while showing support for the opposition. Amid this growing isolation, Assad’s demeanor during the interview has prompted Western officials to question the extent to which he is in control and how long he can last.

A day after the interview aired, a U.S. State Department spokesman, Mark Toner, said that Assad’s comments indicated that either the Syrian president is a “tool” or he is “completely disconnected” from reality.
Uninterrupted Killings

Even as Assad made overtures to the West by agreeing to the ABC interview, the killings of civilians didn’t stop, and a United Nations human-rights official, Navi Pillay, has warned that Syria may descend into civil war. Should that happen, there are concerns that the violence would spill into neighboring states such as Lebanon, which borders Israel.

David W. Lesch, who wrote a biography of the president’s late father, Hafez Al-Assad, says evidence suggests that forces other than Assad -- including members of the Mukhabarat, the dozen branches of Syria’s security and intelligence agencies -- are making decisions about the harshness of the violence.

“Power at the top in Syria is compartmentalized,” Lesch said in an e-mailed response to questions. “While Bashar is certainly in control and ultimately responsible for all actions by the government, there are fiefdoms of power that react convulsively when their area of authority is activated.” [ read more at link]