Michael Williams: Turkey’s Stance Will Seal the Fate of Syria’s Ceausescu

The writer is a former UN undersecretary general in the Middle East. He is Distinguished Visiting Fellow at Chatham House.

When the leader of the rising power in the Middle East reminds a neighbour, and former close friend, of the fates of Adolf Hitler and Nicolae Ceausescu, that is a health warning to be heeded. So what are the chances of Bashar al-Assad taking the advice of his erstwhile friend, Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan? In my experience, slim indeed.

In meetings with Syria’s president in recent years I was struck by his Manichean outlook. After almost nine months of protests there is no indication that Mr Assad has any intention of introducing meaningful reforms. Indeed it would be entirely out of keeping with his character which, in the classic totalitarian mould, brooks no opposing views. If there is an East European leader he resembles it is Ceausescu.

Like the ill-fated Romanian, Mr Assad is not a man to go quietly into the night. Neither will he follow Tunisia’s Zein al-Abidine Ben Ali and flee. In his case, I suppose the obvious destination would be Tehran. But as one Israeli general quipped to me, the first lady – the glamorous Mrs Assad profiled by Vogue on the eve of the revolt – is more used to the couture of Paris than Tehran. Anyway, to flee would mean failure. Like Hosni Mubarak and Muammer Gaddafi, he is more likely to tough it out – with dire consequences for him and his family...