Assad or We Burn the Country: How One Family's Lust for Power Destroyed SyriaFrom a Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist specializing in the Middle East, this groundbreaking account of the Syrian Civil War reveals the never-before-published true story of a 21st-century humanitarian disaster. In spring 2011, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad turned to his friend and army commander, Manaf Tlass, for advice about how to respond to Arab Spring-inspired protests. Tlass pushed for conciliation but Assad decided to crush the uprising -- an act which would catapult the country into an eight-year long war, killing almost half a million and fueling terrorism and a global refugee crisis. Assad or We Burn the Country examines Syria's tragedy through the generational saga of the Assad and Tlass families, once deeply intertwined and now estranged in Bashar's bloody quest to preserve his father's inheritance. By drawing on his own reporting experience in Damascus and exclusive interviews with Tlass, Dagher takes readers within palace walls to reveal the family behind the destruction of a country and the chaos of an entire region. Dagher shows how one of the world's most vicious police states came to be and explains how a regional conflict extended globally, engulfing the Middle East and pitting the United States and Russia against one another. Timely, propulsive, and expertly reported, Assad or We Burn the Country is the definitive account of this global crisis, going far beyond the news story that has dominated headlines for years. |
Contents
Creation and Punishment | |
Golden Knight | |
To Whom the Horses after You Bassel? | |
New King and Early Spring | |
Hit Them Where It Hurts | |
Precious Interlocutor and Unavoidable Player | |
We Have to Win | |
Exiting | |
No Role for | |
At Your Service O Bashar | |
The Clans Knights and Soothsayers | |
Macabre Coronation | |
A Game of Nations | |
Abu Ali Putin | |
No More Fear after Today | |
The Conspiracy | |
Youre Too Soft | |
The Hama Manual | |
Yalla Erhal Ya Bashar Come On Bashar Leave | |
Dont Stay with the Butcher | |
Blood on My Hands | |
Daesh or Bashar? | |
Dictators Strike Backbut Hope Endures | |
Note on Characters | |
Acknowledgments | |
Discover More About the Author | |
Notes Praise for Sam Daghers Assador We Burn the Country | |
Other editions - View all
Assad or We Burn the Country: How One Family's Lust for Power Destroyed Syria Sam Dagher No preview available - 2020 |
Assad, Or We Burn the Country: How One Family's Lust for Power Destroyed Syria Sam Dagher No preview available - 2018 |
Assad or We Burn the Country: How One Family's Lust for Power Destroyed Syria Sam Dagher No preview available - 2019 |
Common terms and phrases
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