Bashar Assad, Syria's baby-faced, blunt-spoken President, probably never imagined he would be going head to head with the U.S. over the future of the Middle East. That was more the kind of mission relished by his late father Hafez Assad, the stern military commander who ruled Syria for 30 years until his death in 2000. Bashar's humble ambition was to leave politics to others in the clan and become a doctor. In the early '90s he went to London to study ophthalmology. There he courted his wife Asma, a young banker of Syrian origin who is fluent in four languages. When...
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