As Assad returns to the global fold, MARK ALMOND asks, how long before Putin is ... trends now
Bashar Al Assad is no longer a pariah. Yesterday, at an Arab League conference in the Saudi city of Jeddah, the Syrian dictator was greeted like the returning prodigal son.
A mere 12 years ago, Syria was expelled from the regional organisation after its dictator began to wage a pitiless war against his own people.
Yet now the Arab states – with the distinguished exception of Qatar – are willing to turn a blind eye to the butcher's atrocities.
Not so long ago, the Saudis and other Gulf monarchs – as well as the West – bankrolled the rebels fighting Assad's regime.
But yesterday, Arab leaders eagerly clasped his blood-soaked hands. This rehabilitation of a despot is not merely sickening – it sends a dangerous message to other aggressive regimes.
Pictured: Syrian President Bashar Assad, is accompanied by Prince Badr Bin Sultan, deputy governor of Mecca, upon his arrival at Jeddah airport, Saudi Arabia, Thursday, May 18, 2023, ahead of the Arab summit
Pictured: Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting of the Council on Interethnic Relations in Pyatigorsk, Stavropol Krai region, Russia, on May 19, 2023
Stick at it long enough, they will conclude, and even states who oppose you today will eventually welcome you back into the fold.
Vladimir Putin, for one, will surely take heart. How long before he, like Assad, is again glad-handed at international summits? How long before news footage of Ukrainian children, their limbs blown off by Russian bombs, is conveniently ignored for the sake of economic expediency?
When Assad began shelling his own civilians in 2011, Western leaders issued fine words but were unwilling to commit their blood and treasure. This left a vacuum for Putin, who propped Assad up with military support, levelling civilian areas – not least Aleppo – in a monstrous dress rehearsal for what he would do in Ukraine.
Half a million men, women and children died in Syria. Six million were forced from their homes, triggering a refugee crisis that continues today.
Even when Assad used chemical weapons, which crossed the so-called 'Red Line' set by Barack Obama and David Cameron, the West didn't intervene. All this led Putin to calculate – wrongly, as it turned out – that
