Assad Says He Feels No Guilt for Deaths of Syrians

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In Bashar Al Assad’s interview with ABC’s Barbara Walters, the Syrian leader says he feels no guilt for the deaths of Syrians during the past nine months of protests because he, Assad, does not control those forces.

Marco Werman listens to parts of the interview with Andrew Tabler of The Washington Institute to get his reaction.

Tabler lived in Syria for seven years and has met Bashar Assad.

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Marco Werman: I’m Marco Werman. This is The World. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is raising eyebrows around the globe today and not just because he gave a rare interview to ABC’s Barbara Walters. In that interview Assad denies every ordering Syria’s armed forces to kill protestors. For nine months now those protestors have been demanding the end of the Assad regime. The United Nations estimates that more than 4,000 people have been killed in the ongoing crackdown by Syrian security forces. But in the comments being broadcast today by ABC, Assad questions the U.N.’s credibility and in any case denies his own responsibility for the violence. Andrew Tabler is a fellow at the Washington Institute. He lived in the Middle East for 14 years and has met both the Syrian leader and his wife. Andrew Tabler, thanks for joining us to deconstruct Assad’s interview.

Andrew Tabler: Thank you.

Werman: Let’s listen to some of his comments first of all. Here he is responding to Barbara Walters after she asked him if he feels guilty for the deaths of Syrians.

[RECORDING: Assad: I do my best to protect the people so you cannot feel guilty when you do your best. You feel sorry for the life that has been lost but you don't feel guilty when you don't kill people.]

Werman: You’ve met Bashar al-Assad. Is he choosing his words carefully by implying that he didn’t kill people directly so he’s not responsible?

Tabler: Well I mean I think that it clear shows that President Assad is in complete denial. He knows that he is the complete commander of Syria along with his family. Every state in the world knows that. What he’s doing though is trying to say that somehow it’s being controlled by some other forces besides his own security bodies. That’s just not in keeping with the reports that we have via video from Syria as well as that of a lot of brave journalists who have been going over the border into Syria and doing reporting on the front lines of the protests which now have engulfed the entire country.

Werman: Okay, Andrew, in this next excerpt Bashar al-Assad completely distances himself from any control over Syria’s security forces.

[RECORDING: Assad: They are not my forces. They are... military forces belong to the government. I don't own them. I'm President. I don't own the country so they're not my forces.

Walters: No, but you have to give the order.

Assad: No, no, no.

Walters: Not by your command?

Assad: No, no, no. We don't have... no one's command. There was no command to kill or to be brutal.]

Werman: They’re not his forces. Andrew Tabler, is Bashar al-Assad saying he has no control over Syrian troops and security personnel?

Tabler: He’s trying to do that. Syria is a centralized tyrannical authoritarian system. To say that he’s not in control of his own forces, security forces or the military, is ludicrous.

Werman: All right. In this next bit of the interview, Walters challenges Assad’s answer but Assad remains defiant.

[RECORDING: Assad: We don't kill our people. Nobody kill, no government in the world, kill it's people unless it's led by crazy person. Before as president, I became president because of the public support.]

Werman: Andrew, what do you make of that last comment?

Tabler: This is what’s called the basis of reality argument that’s always put forward by the Assad regime that somehow we don’t know what’s going on inside the country. This used to work when Syria was closed to the outside world but under Bashar al-Assad it’s opened up. Of course now with the other reports that are coming out on Syria via video and so on, it clearly shows that there is another reality going on.

Werman: Andrew, you know Assad, why did he even give this interview? I mean it seems like it in some ways it makes him more vulnerable.

Tabler: Because they are getting more desperate. A few days ago the head of the Syrian National Council, the essentially government forming in exile, gave an interview to The Wall Street Journal and it was picked up everywhere. The Assad regime now is desperate to reframe the conflict. But the problem is the way they are reframing the argument is that nothing is going on in Syria and it’s just a bunch of armed gangs. This is nine months into the conflict.

Werman: Andrew Tabler, how does the Assad in this interview with Barbara Walters square with the Assad you knew when you lived there?

Tabler: This pattern has been growing for years. His father was a brutal dictator and killed 30,000 people in Hama in 1982 so like father like son. But in another way he was a more straightforward person. Bashar’s erratic behavior over the last 11 years is a consistent pattern. Bashar al-Assad says one thing, he does another and it’s perplexed everyone. But now everyone like in a reality TV show is entering the room and they’re starting to discuss what’s actually going to work with this guy and this is where we get into the conversations about some sort of intervention in Syria. Although the parameters of that until now are not clear.

Werman: We’ve been speaking with Andrew Tabler. He’s a fellow at the Washington Institute and the author of In the Lions Den. Andrew, thanks a lot for you input.

Tabler: Thank you.

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