Original subtitles

This programme contains scenes which some viewers may find upsetting

I was raised in Syria.

I came to the United States in 1989.

I had some interaction with Bashar the first year

and throughout medical school.

It's very ironic that we were classmates.

One of us is bombing hospitals

and one of us is treating the victims of the bombing.

Unfortunately...

..we have totally different pathways and...

I'm just tired.

I wish that Bashar al-Assad was there to see

what's happening in Aleppo.

When you swear the Hippocratic oath,

the first rule of humanitarian medicine is impartiality.

That means you allow doctors and nurses and ambulances

to treat even the injured fighters.

So, when you target hospitals, when you target doctors,

when you kill doctors and nurses...

I don't know.

I know the man behind the presidency.

I know the father he is to his children

and I know the husband that he is to me.

And, more importantly, I know that he's a man who cares.

You ask yourself, how does this mild-mannered eye doctor,

how does he end up killing hundreds of thousands of people?

Syria, a cradle of civilisation.

Over the centuries, it has been ruled by the Roman

and Muslim empires, the Ottomans and the French.

In 1970, the Assad family took control.

Now it's 2010 and Bashar, a former eye doctor

who trained in London, is in charge.

Bashar and his wife Asma are in a precarious psychological position.

Their government has been accused of killing political opponents

and massacring prisoners.

And yet they have promised the Syrian people

freedoms and reform.

The world now waits to see which path they will ultimately take.

EXCITED SHOUTING

APPLAUSE GROWS

TRANSLATION:

PRAYERS RING OUT

In many ways, he is the same person I met before he became president.

He is very calm, he's very thoughtful.

But probably one of the best things about him

is that he is so easy to talk to.

You can talk to him about anything and everything.

And that's great.

You like this restaurant, Mr President?

This is where we had dinner

with President Sarkozy, the same place.

On the 17th December 2010, Asma is interviewed

for a profile piece by Vogue magazine.

The same day in Tunisia, a fruit seller sets himself on fire

to protest against corruption...

..the first action in what would become the Arab Spring,

the start of revolutions across the Middle East.

So, I'm Robert Ford,

former American ambassador to Syria.

Vermont is about as far away from the Middle East as you can get.

It's green, it has long, cold winters.

The summers are very mild

and we have yet to ever have a roadside bomb.

When I arrived in Damascus in mid-January of 2011,

I brought to Bashar al-Assad

the letter from President Barack Obama.

It basically just said "This is Robert Ford,

"he's a great guy, please work with him and help him out."

I wanted to be polite - I mean, I'm a diplomat, right?

I've got to deal with his government.

So I wanted to ask him, are you worried about

the Arab Spring coming to Syria?

Certainly, everybody in Damascus was wondering about that.

And so, I couldn't quite figure out how to ask the question

in a polite way, like, "Are you worried about being overthrown?"

So, I think I said something like, "There's a lot on the television

"about the winds blowing in North Africa.

"Are you worried about the winds coming here?"

I thought that was slightly opaque, but he certainly understood it.

He was very comfortable, very relaxed, and he said, "No."

He said, "That's not going to happen here

"because the Syrian people strongly support the government

"and so we don't have to worry about that here."

Meanwhile, around the world, the Vogue magazine article

hits the newsstands.

In it, Bashar is portrayed as a very modern leader

and Asma is shown in this iconic portrait, looking out over Damascus,

lit by the evening sun.

She's dubbed The Desert Rose.

"A thin, long-limbed beauty with a trained analytic mind

"who dresses with cunning understatement.

"Paris Match calls her,

"the element of light in a country full of shadows."

"She is the first lady of Syria."

It was such, like, a kind of breeze of air, fresh air.

That woman with her short hair and short skirts,

walking not behind her husband

but actually hand-in-hand with him.

And I think in that way, Asma al-Assad was the first

kind of iconic symbol of what a Syrian and Arab woman can be.

This article was not targeted for Syrians,

it was targeted to the Western public.

Bashar al-Assad knew, at that stage, that the regime could fall

and he could lose his place in Syria.

Asma has been touring schools,

inspiring students to change Syria and speak their minds.

In February 2011, in the southern Syrian town of Deraa,

a group of teenagers write graffiti on the wall of their school.

It says, "Your turn next, Doctor."

Atef Najib is Bashar's first cousin on his mother's side.

Not part of the inner circle,

he's been given the job of head of security in the town of Deraa.

Bashar's cousin Atef's actions towards the children

sparks outrage in the town,

and demonstrators take to the streets.

The Assad family has watched as other regimes in the Middle East

have been overthrown by the people.

Now they have protest marches in Syria.

I went to his house.

I told Bashar, "Please, Mr President,

"try to avoid bloodshed.

"Try to avoid bloodshed."

He said, "We will, we will, OK. Everything will be OK."

GUNS FIRE

RAPID GUNFIRE

JEERING AND SHOUTING

After the shootings in Deraa,

thousands take to the streets to protest.

It is the most serious unrest the country has seen in decades.

For two weeks, Bashar is nowhere to be seen.

The world awaits his response.

There was some discussion in the diplomatic cocktail circuit

as to whether or not Bashar was on the side of reform

or on the side of repression.

People expected Assad to speak to them

after the first demonstration in Deraa.

And it was a very simple thing that they expected.

"I apologise for what happened to the children of Deraa,"

and he will say, "Forgive us for what we have done,

"let's close that chapter.

"Atef Najib will be removed

"and I am ready to listen to you, just listen to you."

He saw what happened in Tunisia, he saw what happened in Egypt,

he saw what happened in Libya and Yemen and Bahrain.

He will capture this moment and become a leader.

APPLAUSE

CROWD CHANTS:

And so Bashar arrives at what some see as the key moment in his life.

He has to choose whether to give the people the reforms they want

or to try and tough it out and crack down.

There was a point in time where there really was a sense

that Assad was going to step down, that he was not his father,

and that he was not going

to be willing to fight for power.

And...

..what the intelligence community was able to find out

was that his mother was putting tremendous pressure on him

to basically stand up and be like his father,

and that he owed it to his father to fight for continuing power

and not to just walk away.

This gets down to basic

mother- son relationships.

HE LAUGHS

You know, using the ghost of his father as leverage

to give him a spine to fight on.

CHANTING RESUMES

I understand the meaning behind the words.

I understood that this is a person who is not serious about reform,

and that Syria would go through a bad time.

That was very disappointing.

I mean, my dreams and my generation's dreams were dashed

because of that speech.

The speech causes more protests.

And again, the security forces open fire.

GUNFIRE

Over 100 people are killed.

FEMALE VOICE SINGS:

SHE SINGS:

EXPLOSION

AMBIENT MUSIC PLAYS

At that time there was the story of a child from Deraa,

his name was Hamza Al-Khateeb.

Well, Hamza Al-Khateeb was a young Syrian boy,

I think he was 11 or 12.

He was taken by intelligence agents.

There was agreement on that.

And his body was delivered to the family some days later,

and bearing signs of torture.

Good afternoon, everyone.

With respect to Syria, I too was, um...very concerned

by the reports about the young boy.

In fact, I think what that

symbolises for many Syrians

is the. ..total collapse of any...

effort by the Syrian government to

work with and listen to their own people.

13-year-old Hamza's dead body had been returned to his parents

covered in cigarette burns, and his penis had been cut off.

It is seen as a message to the Syrian people

about what happens to protesters.

I said to him, "Mr President,

who killed, who killed Hamza Al-Khateeb?"

He answered, "We did not torture him...

..but his body was with time, did... was rotten."

I said, "But Mr President, who killed him?"

He said, "We killed him."

So when you hear such, such a guy saying such things

that are beyond imagination, you can see,

you can see the double personality this guy has.

AMBIENT MUSIC PLAYS

The question now is the extent to which Bashar

is controlling the actions of his security forces.

The crackdown in the beginning,

the brutality - do you think

it went too far?

I cannot tell you this without the evidence.

You ask me to tell you according to rumours or to reports?

It is not enough for me as President.

I have seen awful pictures of what happened.

Many people criticise me.

Did they kill all of them? Who killed who?

Most of the people that are being killed

are supporters of the government.

Did you give the order for the crackdown?

No. We gave the order to implement the constitution,

and we don't have policy, we don't have institutions that kill people

or give orders for brutal reaction.

This is an individual and it is what I describe

as individual mistakes.

Not by your command?

No, no, no. We don't have. .. No-one's command.

There was no command to kill or to be brutal.

In 2011, a secret unit is set up to co-ordinate

the Syrian government's military and secret police.

It is called the Central Crisis Management Cell.

This man is a defector who used to work for that unit.

He risked his life to smuggle out the incriminating documents

with Bashar's signature at the bottom.

Many have wondered about what seems to be a disconnect between

the person Bashar appears to be and his actions -

almost like they're two different people.

Part of the explanation is that there is another person -

his brother.

There's a real question - to what degree is this a duopoly?

The mother is said to have preferred Maher as the successor,

but was overruled by Hafez.

On the one hand, Bashar was the civilian face,

the dignified leader of the country. On the other hand,

Maher would be the aggressive side of the regime.

I don't think Bashar is or ever has been

comfortable with force and brutality.

That's delegated to and designated for his younger brother.

I see Bashar in the surgical amphitheatre.

Up in the viewing parts of that amphitheatre.

And his brother being down there in this...

bathed in blood.

While that's uncomfortable for Bashar,

he thinks it's necessary for the health of the nation.

RIFLE SHOT

WHISTLING

RIFLE SHOT

SCREAMING

RIFLE SHOT

In 2011, Syria is on the brink.

Mass demonstrations are taking place across the country.

Some members of the military join the uprising, and the largest

demonstration yet takes place in the town of Hama.

CROWD CHANTS

They already started these very large protests in Hama,

and I sent an Arabic-speaking young American diplomat up to Hama

to see the protests, and they came back and said,

"They're very peaceful.

"They're handing out flowers and releasing doves into the air

"and chanting, 'Peaceful, peaceful,' in Arabic."

We then heard the government's military had surrounded the city.

CHANTING

We certainly knew the history of what had happened

in Hama in 1982.

In 1982, in Hama, a group called the Muslim Brotherhood had wanted

to overthrow Bashar's father, Hafez,

and set up an Islamic government.

Hafez sent his brother, Rifaat, to deal with it.

Rifaat had the town bombed...

..killing 20,000,

many of those civilians.

It is something the Syrian people have never forgotten.

Now, 30 years later, Hama is rising up again.

VOICE SPEAKS IN OWN LANGUAGE

GUNFIRE

SCREAMING

100 demonstrators are killed.

But, perhaps aware of the history,

the Assad regime stops short of bombing the town.

Uprisings are now taking place in the key towns across the country,

and the conflict is becoming ever more sectarian.

While the Assad family are from the Alawite religious sect,

a tiny minority, Syria is majority Sunni Muslim,

and the Sunni town of Homs becomes the capital of the rebellion.

CROWD CHANTS:

At this point, Bashar makes a surprising move.

He brings his brother-in-law back into the fold.

Assef Shawkat is the black sheep of the family.

Shawkat had been seen as a potential threat to Bashar's leadership,

so he had been sidelined.

Assef Shawkat was one of the most amazing figures in Damascus.

And he always was a warrior.

He would fight to achieve his goals.

This man is very, very ambitious.

But now Bashar needs him.

Basically, it's a test, it's a test for him.

Can he deliver on the project? Can he succeed on delivering Homs

for the regime?

If so, then he demonstrates his mettle, his loyalty to the regime

as a whole, but it also, for him, it also elevates him,

elevates his status.

HE YELLS IN OWN LANGUAGE

HEAVY GUNFIRE

At this point, the world starts to notice the scale

of what is going on...

The situation is incredible.

It's nonstop bombardment of the civilian area.

..as a heroic journalist and her cameraman enter the town.

Marie, I mean, you have covered a lot of conflicts

over a long time - how does this compare?

And the Assads cross another moral line.

Evidence suggests that they used the satellite positioning

of the phone that Marie Colvin is using to report with

to pinpoint her exact location...

..and kill her, too.

Much of Homs is destroyed by government shelling.

Asma's family all come from Homs.

So now many wonder how she feels about her husband's actions.

We've been wondering, "Where is she in all of this?"

And wondering, "When is she going to leave? How is she going to get out?

"How is she going to be smuggled out?"

I'm sure she could have had opportunities to leave,

and I know that she has had opportunities to leave.

Why on earth would she remain with this guy?

How can she live with herself at night?

Well, from my perspective, it was never a question of preference.

I stood by him because my conviction didn't tell me otherwise.

I have been here since the beginning, and I never thought

of being anywhere else at all.

And secondly, yes, I was offered the opportunity

to leave Syria, or rather to run from Syria.

These offers included guarantees of safety and protection

for my children and even financial security.

It doesn't take a genius to know what these people were really after.

It was never about my wellbeing or my children.

It was a deliberate attempt to shatter people's confidence

in their President.

In 2012, the Guardian newspaper obtains the private e-mails

of Bashar and Asma.

They show Bashar's flirtatious correspondence

with some of his female aides, leading some to speculate

if he is having affairs.

They show that Asma is ordering expensive goods from Harrods.

And they swap messages of love and support.

I think the leaks of e-mails

among the Assad family

reinforced our sense that the... President Bashar and his wife

were a bit removed from

the day-to-day ghastliness and brutality of the conflict.

I mean, Mrs al-Assad was the sort of person

who liked to be able to shop in Paris and London.

She was confined - not just confined to Syria,

she was confined to the Presidential Palace for years on end.

I suspect that she found that very, very difficult,

and she'd have to be looked after.

Running battles are now taking place across Syria,

with atrocities committed by both sides.

In June 2012, the United Nations

declares that Syria is in a state of civil war.

One member of the family begins to wonder

if they are following the right path.

Bashar's charismatic brother-in-law, Assef Shawkat.

I think, probably, he was willing to negotiate

an end to the conflict.

He was willing to push the Syrians towards a different path.

He was counselling Bashar to, you know, head down another route,

but that would have been directly in opposition to, you know, Anisa,

what Anisa wanted Bashar to do.

They saw him possibly being, you know, an appeaser.

This is a family that requires 100% loyalty, and loyalty to the project,

to the family project.

At this point, the killing becomes more personal.

Inside the Ministry of Defence, a bomb goes off.

How could somebody so close to the family,

with such a strong security detail, be assassinated?

Very hard to imagine that the Free Syrian Army

or the rebels would have had sufficient intelligence

to have carried out that attack.

It strikes me as something that must have been known within the family.

Assef was still having his own concept

about how the whole game should be played

and the whole country should be ruled.

Yeah.

It's always dangerous -

and. ..he is dead now.

CROWD CHANTS

Hundreds line the streets for Assef Shawkat's funeral,

but Bashar and Asma do not attend.

Over and over throughout the crisis he tends to use medical terminology.

He mentioned that you have tens of thousands of germs in your body,

and eradicating these germs,

that will improve your body immunity.

So the meaning, of course,

that you can kill tens of thousands of Syrians, because they are germs,

and that will empower Syria

or increase the power of Syria or strengthen Syria.

This is an extreme way of killing people.

Even if you are the most brutal person on earth,

you should not let people and children die that way.

Sarin gas is the most brutal way of killing people.

When we talk about the use of chemical agents in Syria,

chemical agents probably killed less than 1%

of the 500,000 people who died in Syria,

but it is the most extreme way of death.

People tell me that I would rather die by a missile

than dying with sarin gas.

Because, with sarin gas,

you will not actually smell anything,

but you start to feel shortness of breath,

your muscles are paralysed, so you are awake,

but at the same time, you're not able to breathe.

And sarin gas has been used multiple times in Syria.

The world now looks to America

to see if they will intervene.

Today we have released our unclassified assessment

that the Syrian regime carried out a chemical weapons attack

that killed well over 1,000 people, including hundreds of children.

This follows the horrific images that shocked us all.

And the doctor who went to medical school with Bashar

goes to talk to the President.

I met with President Obama in the White House.

And I told him, "Mr President, I'm a doctor.

"I went in Aleppo and Syria multiple times.

"I've seen the impact of the war on civilians.

"We would like you to be more proactive in ending this violence

"and protecting civilians in Syria,

"and Mr President, I believe that your legacy will be determined

"by what you do in Syria".

So he looked at me and he said, "But, Dr Sahloul,

"my legacy will be determined by other things also."

I said, "But Syria will be the main factor."

The President took a long walk, and...

..the result of that was that the President made the decision

that he was not going to...

He was not going to do it on his own,

but was going to send the issue to the Congress.

What happens next is that Congress

fails to be able to provide the authority to the President.

The American people have no appetite for another war in the Middle East,

and Congress has little desire to support Obama.

So the use of chemical weapons goes unchecked.

ALL SHOUT

In 2013, the remnants of Al-Qaeda and other Islamist groups

unite under a new name.

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.

Isis.

They declare their intention to take over Syria.

As the Civil War grips Syria,

millions leave the country...

.. often risking their lives.

At the height of the conflict, in February 2016,

Bashar's mother, Anisa, dies at the age of 86.

She wanted to be buried in her home town, 200 miles outside of Damascus.

Bashar sets off in a convoy of cars.

This rebel group decide to try to kill him

on the way to his mother's funeral.

Reports emerge of them firing rockets at the convoy...

..killing some of his entourage,

but Bashar escapes unhurt.

I mean, for any family, when a very strong matriarch goes,

this leaves a vacuum.

For Asma, she occupies the space that's been left by Anisa.

At their lowest point,

the Assads control less than 20% of Syria...

..the ancient city of Palmyra is all but destroyed...

..and Isis get within three miles

of the gates of the presidential palace...

..but at this point, Bashar finds a saviour.

The Russians' involvement turns the war in Bashar's favour...

Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar!

..and so the son who had wanted to help the blind to see

oversaw the killing of hundreds of thousands of people.

This represents what's happening in Syria.

So, this second-grade child, he drew this.

Helicopters that are throwing, it looks like barrel bombs,

house on fire, children who are mutilated and bleeding,

and children who are crying.

What is interesting and very hurtful in this picture,

that children who are dead, they are smiling,

and children who are alive are crying.

As if this child is telling us that people who die in Syria

are better placed than people who are living.

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