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Appointment in Damascus
TIME columnist Joe Klein on the Syrian troop withdrawal and President Assad
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The official photograph of Syrian President Bashar Assad is extremely
stern. The photos and murals of his father and predecessor Hafez
Assad, still festooned throughout Syria, are leavened by the
confident gaze and beneficent smile possible only for a dictator in
total control. Bashar, however, stares off into the middle distance,
working hard to convey vision and strength but avoiding direct eye
contact with his subjects. Indeed, the younger Assad, an
ophthalmologist by trade who became heir apparent only when his older
brother was killed in an automobile crash, remains something of...