COMMENTARY | Asma Assad, the wife of Syrian President Bashar Assad, must be having some seriously conflicting thoughts in her head right now. While her husband’s military ruthlessly and indiscriminately shells her hometown of Homs, killing innocent civilians as well as two Western journalists (American reporter Marie Colvin and French photojournalist Remi Ochlik) in the process, Mrs. Assad has to be wondering if she is living in some sort of alternate reality.
Asma is the daughter of a well-to-do doctor and diplomat who grew up in a leafy London neighborhood but originally hails from Homs, the current target of her husband’s now three-week-long offensive that has killed hundreds of people in the city. Back in the days when Syria was more peaceful, Asma, in a very ironic twist, championed humanitarian issues. In fact, she was the subject of a glowing puff piece in Vogue magazine last March before the current uprising began. The article praised her encouragement of “active citizenship” and the growth of civil society in Syria. After the uprising began, Vogue removed the article from its website.
Moreover, in what now seems like shockingly hypocritical language, the American Interest’s Walter Russell Mead reported recently on his blog how Asma Assad denounced the actions of Israel in Gaza in a 2009 interview to CNN. In a particularly haunting passage, Asma noted that “you put your children to bed at night and you expect to see them in the morning. That’s a luxury that people in Gaza just do not have.”
It is also now a luxury that her fellow Homsis do not have either, thanks to her husband. In fact, the United Nations recently noted that hundreds of Syrian children have been killed by their government during the almost year-long uprising. Where’s the outrage for that Asma?
With the exception of a terse email supporting her husband that was sent to the Times of London earlier this month, the first lady has not said much since the uprising began in Syria. How could she? Asma has to recognize at this point that her legacy has been written and that no words could save her or her husband from the colossal tragedy that they have unleashed on their own people.