Syria's dictator is following the same path that led Libya's leader to his death



Assad today gave his first public speech in two months / Reuters

This morning, in his first public speech in two months, Assad made an angry, rambling, nearly two-hour long speech vowing to crush with "an iron first" the "conspiracy" against his regime. He made delusional claims that nobody believes: there have been no orders to fire on civilians, the protesters are all terrorists, foreigners are to blame. He sounded, in other words, like the "mad dog of the Middle East" himself, Muammar Qaddafi, whose defiant and wild-eyed speeches nearly a year ago presaged the Libyan civil war.

Back in April, an NPR producer wrote up the 11 steps that Middle Eastern dictators take on the path to losing power. Her list, like the many similar lists floating around Arabic-language blogs and social media, drew from the examples of Tunisia's Zine el Abidine ben Ali (fled in January), Egypt's Hosni Mubarak (forced out in February), and Yemen Ali Abdullah Saleh (pressured by the U.S. to resign in early April, a still-ongoing process). The pattern looked indelible, and still does. Here's the list:

Shut down the internet Send thugs (on foot or horseback) Attack and arrest journalists Shoot people Promise to investigate who shot people Do a meaningless political reshuffle Blame Al Jazeera Organise paid demonstrations in favor of your regime Make a condescending speech about how much you love the youth Warn that the country will fall into chaos without you Blame foreign agitators

Step 12 is the dictator's departure. But, in the Arab Spring's first year, two autocrats have resisted this formula, sometimes appearing to painstakingly avoid the paths of their fallen brethren: Libya's Muammar Qaddafi and Syria's Bashar al-Assad. Both actually did (and do) follow the above list, but only made it one half of their two-part strategy for staying in power. The other half is much simpler, a list with one item: open war against anyone who resists his rule.