Assad Or We Burn the Country by Sam Dagher review – scoop-filled history of Syria’s downfall

The Wall Street Journal writer gives a compelling insider account of the deadly ambition of the Assads

In the summer of 2012, news broke that Manaf Tlass, a general in Syria's elite Republican Guard and a confidante of Bashar al-Assad, had defected and was en route to exile in France. Tlass was not just the tennis partner of the shy ophthalmologist who was presiding over the greatest crisis of the Arab spring; they were close, indeed intimate, family friends.

Tlass had been alarmed by Assad's brutal crackdown since protests erupted in the southern city of Daraa in March 2011: young people inspired by the historic changes taking place in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya called for dignity, freedom and the overthrow of their own oppressive regime. Syria, however, seemed destined from the start to be a different story - and a far bloodier one.

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