CNN har en fascinerende profil på Syrias førstedame, Asma al-Assad. Hun er født i Storbritannia, datter av en syrisk hjertespesialist og en diplomat ved ambassaden. Asma gikk på britiske skoler, og arbeidet tre år som mekler med sammenslåinger innen bioteknologi som spesiale. Hun er vakker, rik, smart, vestlig, og samtidig førstedame i et brutalt regime som slåss for sitt liv og utviser stor brutalitet. Hvordan takler hun presset?

Før opprøret var det mulig å opprettholde forestillingen om at ting ville bli bedre. Paret ble fremstilt som Syrias fremtid, full av reformasjonsiver og moderne tanker. Asmas skjønnhet og smartness bidro til å bekrefte oppfatningen.

Men selv som førstedame er det mye man må lukke øynene for, for å bevare denne illusjonen om forandring. For det kom ingen forandring.

En amerikaner, Andrew Tabler, som fulgte Assad-familiens ti år ved makten, måtte konstatere at forandring ikke var mulig innenfra.

When Tabler, a Pennsylvania native, moved to Syria, interested in Middle Eastern politics, he was full of hope. Bashar al-Assad had taken power the previous year. He and his new wife seemed a modern couple, and there was the promise of reform.
Eight years later, Tabler left Syria feeling the government was so paralyzed by systemic, decades-old corruption that even the most well-intentioned leaders were unlikely to spur positive change. Now a Next Generation fellow at The Washington Institute’s Program on Arab Politics, Tabler believes Bashar al-Assad must go.
Tabler earned a living in Syria as a freelance journalist, some of his early work in the country coming when Asma al-Assad gave him approval and funding to write and publish an English-language magazine called Syria Today in the early 2000s.
Tabler says her assistance at the time was extraordinary. There were no press freedoms in Syria, and yet the president’s wife, modern in dress and direct in tone, was sanctioning an American to write about the country.
But then came problems. Tabler worked for Asma al-Assad for a year and agreed to run editions past her before publication. Just before the first edition was due to come out, it was mysteriously quashed. Her assistant delivered the bad news without explanation. At one point, he and another writer felt they were being spied on by the Mukhabarat, the country’s secret police.

Asma møtte en gruppe hjelpearbeidere i oktober. De fortalte henne om hva som foregår. Hun satt helt uttrykksløs. Blokkert.

In October as bodies piled up in the streets of Homs and Hama, aid workers told Britain’s Independent newspaper they had met with Asma al-Assad in Damascus, at her request.
The first lady asked the group about the risks of their jobs, one worker told The Independent. But she was expressionless, the workers said, when they told her about abuses they had witnessed by security forces and soldiers.
«There was no reaction. She didn’t react at all. It was just like I was telling a normal story, something that happens every day,» one worker said.
Tabler said he suspects the first lady «is in denial» about just how severe the violence in Syria has become — and about her husband’s culpability.
«They talked so much about reform that I think she has fooled herself,» he said.

Asma har ved en tidligere anledning bedyret hvor lav toleranse hun har for voldelige regimer. Anledningen var Israel krig mot Gaza i 2009. Den gang brukte hun sterke ord. Det er lett å spørre hvor samvittigheten er nå som hennes mann begår langt verre forbrytelser.

Men dette spørsmålet er det kanskje flere som burde stille seg?

But Asma al-Assad’s head seemed quite clear two years ago when she spoke with CNN about how she would not tolerate an oppressive and violent regime, except in this instance she was talking about the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis.
She said that 60% of Middle Easterners are under 25 and feel increasingly frustrated with a lack of economic opportunity. Governments must make those young people «believe in a future,» she said.
«The reality on the ground is increasingly … going further and further and further away from that,» she said, foreshadowing the causes of the Arab Spring, a movement led primarily by young people.
The first lady went on to speak about 2009’s Gaza War, a three-week bombing and invasion of Gaza by Israel that began in late December when Israel launched a surprise airstrike.
Asma al-Assad called Israel’s actions «barbaric» and said innocent Palestinians were dying in droves. She was appalled by reports from human rights workers who witnessed the carnage.
«This is the 21st century. Where in the world could this happen? Unfortunately it is happening,» she said.
«As a mother and as a human being we need to make sure that these atrocities stop.»

Will Asma al-Assad take a stand or stand by her man?
By Ashley Fantz, CNN