Syria - A Decade of Lost Chances: Repression and Revolution from Damascus Spring to Arab Spring

When Arab Spring swept the region, Syria s President Bashar al-Asad thought that he was safe. Over the previous five years, the moderate opposition had been crushed. Unlike Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, and Libya, Syria had taken an anti-US stance since the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. Syrians were used to living under sanctions and being called terrorists. Asad told Brad and Angelina that he did not need personal security, because ordinary Syrians were protecting him. The Syrian president was convinced that Syrians loved him.
And not only Syrians. Vogue agreed in its March 2011 puff piece that described Asad's wife as a "rose in the desert. "What of Syrian naysayers? Asad counted on his ruthless and all-seeing mukhabarat to keep them in line.