Where I live, people both worship and hate Assad, for various reasons. I am based in Dubai, the commercial hub of the Middle East, so needless to say, news here is biased too.
- Why they hate him?
Mostly, because he belongs from an offshoot branch of the Shi'ite muslim community. Like protestants and Catholics being the 2 main sects in christianity, Islam, too has 2 main branches; Sunni and Shi'ite (referred as Shia)
So anyway, mostly muslims are Sunni, with the exception of Iran and Lebanon in the Mid East (Hence the heavy support from Iran). The arabs here don't care if Assad bombed them or not, all they care about is he is a Shi'ite and has to go (mainly because many mainstream muslims have called several shi'ite religious practices as unislamic). The sane arabs, almost always side with the president.
- Why they like him?
Even a lot of sunni muslims (like myself) support Assad. Living in the middle east, I have made several friends from various countries (no wonder Dubai is the cultural hub, the diverse backgrounds even exceed Toronto imo, been there). If you ask a NORMAL syrian (even a sunni one), they usually support Assad. They do admit they dislike shi'ites, but they still don't call it a reason enough to overthrow him. 90% of the Syrian army is Sunni, yet they back their president.
- What will happen?
Who knows. I, for one, truly hope he stays. 2 years on and he is still in charge, that is a big feat in itself, considering how Afghanistan, Egypt and Iraq leaderships were toppled with in months. That being said, I also believe it's not a matter of how many people he killed, I believe the US is just redoing the Middle East. In it's own way. One by one, each regime in the Middle East is being changed. US logic is, he used chemical weapons, attack him. By that logic, it is okay for a leader to kill his own people for 2 years using normal guns, but the moment he uses chemical weapons, action should be taken?
Imo, the terrorists were heavily funded by the west and Saudi Arabia to overthrow the Syrian Government, but they failed. Now the US wants to finish the job themselves, and by the looks of things these days, looks like they will fail too. |