Call this A Tale of Two Chitties. One can even start this lament with, "It was the worst of times, and it was the even-worster of times." After remaining silent since bugging out of the country that his family ran as a fiefdom for over 50 years, Bashar al-Assad has finally released a statement from exile.

It's exactly as self-serving and whiny as you'd expect. Assad paints himself as a bastion of courage against "terrorism" while inexplicably referring to himself in the third person at times:

I reaffirm that the person who, from the very first day of the war, refused to barter the salvation of his nation for personal gain, or to compromise his people in exchange for numerous offers and enticements is the same person who stood alongside the officers and soldiers of the army on the front lines, just meters from terrorists in the most dangerous and intense battlefields.

He is the same person who, during the darkest years of the war, did not leave but remained with his family alongside his people, confronting terrorism under bombardment and the recurring threats of terrorist incursions into the capital over fourteen years of war.

Furthermore, the person who has never abandoned the resistance in Palestine and Lebanon, nor betrayed his allies who stood by him, cannot possibly be the same person who would forsake his own people or betray the army and nation to which he belongs.

Er ... sure, pal. It's easy to write those words from Moscow, hundreds of miles away safely from "his own people" who would like nothing better than to give him the Mussolini Sendoff. 

All of this might be easier to swallow had Assad even bothered to put up a fight in the final two weeks of his regime. Instead, Assad bugged out of Damascus after the rebels seized Aleppo, Homs, and Hama, retiring first to Latakia and Russian refuge. Assad asserts that he fought as long as possible in Damascus:

First, my departure from Syria was neither planned nor did it occur during the final hours of the battles, as some have claimed.

On the contrary, I remained in Damascus, carrying out my duties until the early hours of Sunday, December 8th, 2024. As terrorist forces infiltrated Damascus, I moved to Lattakia in coordination with our Russian allies to oversee combat operations.

Upon arrival at the Hmeimim airbase that morning, it became clear that our forces had completely withdrawn from all battle lines and that the last army positions had fallen.

As the field situation in the area continued to deteriorate, the Russian military base itself came under intensified attack by drone strikes. With no viable means of leaving the base, Moscow requested that the base’s command arrange an immediate evacuation to Russia on the evening of Sunday 8th December.

Reuters begs to differ. According to their sources, Assad left his aides and even members of his extended family in the dark while he arranged to get out with his life, courtesy of the Russians. 

Bashar al-Assad confided in almost no one about his plans to flee Syria as his reign collapsed. Instead, aides, officials, and even relatives were deceived or kept in the dark, more than a dozen people with knowledge of the events told Reuters.

Hours before he escaped for Moscow, Assad assured a meeting of about 30 army and security chiefs at the defense ministry on Saturday that Russian military support was on its way and urged ground forces to hold out, according to a commander who was present and requested anonymity to speak about the briefing. ...

"Assad didn't even make a last stand. He didn't even rally his own troops," said Nadim Houri, executive director of the Arab Reform Initiative regional think-tank. "He let his supporters face their own fate."

Left twisting in the wind: Assad's brother Maher, commander of an elite division within the Syrian army, and who managed to escape later. Not so fortunate were Assad's maternal cousins Ehab and Eyad Makhlouf, who got stuck in Damascus and attempted to flee. Reports claim that both were shot by rebels who recognized them as they tried to make their way to Lebanon, with Ehab dead and Eyad wounded. 

Assad's statements are precisely as self-serving and gutless as one would expect under the circumstances. But they raise another issue: will Assad attempt to seize control of Syria again? This statement may just be a way for Assad to save face enough to show himself in Moscow's cocktail-party circuit without too much humiliation, but it certainly doesn't suggest that he accepts the end of the Assad 'dynasty,' such as it was. The final two paragraphs of Assad's screed suggests the opposite:

When the state falls into the hands of terrorism and the ability to make a meaningful contribution is lost, any position becomes void of purpose, rendering its occupation meaningless.

This does not, in any way, diminish my profound sense of belonging to Syria and her people – a bond that remains unshaken by any position or circumstance. It is a belonging filled with hope that Syria will once again be free and independent.

That sounds like a call to arms to anyone still loyal to Assad, and that may be a problem for Vladimir Putin. Russia desperately wants to keep its military bases in Syria and says they are negotiating with the rebels to secure their strategic assets. If Putin wants to curry favor with the rebels, they may demand that Putin hand Assad over first as the opening ante to any such negotiations. If Assad is issuing statements about how he belongs to Syria and wants to see the current regime replaced, that demand may become non-negotiable. The rebels certainly have no reason to trust Russian forces in their territory, not after a decade of Russian attacks on the rebels on behalf of the dictator they're current hiding -- and who is now hinting at his return to seize power back. 

One has to wonder whether Assad may soon find out about the Moscow Window Flu. That would certainly make life a lot easier for Putin, who's the chief carrier for that flu. Assad would be a lot more useful to Putin dead than alive in Moscow, and a live Assad transported back to Syria to give the rebels a chance at justice could earn Putin a few chits that he desperately needs. 

Update: The NBC News take on this statement is certainly thought-provoking:

BREAKING: Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad says he planned to keep fighting but Russia forced him to flee, in his first statement attributed to him since his ouster. https://t.co/2B3e0sblZ8

— NBC News (@NBCNews) December 16, 2024

I re-read Assad's statement after this tweet, and still don't quite see where this claim is made. NBC News softens this claim up a little in its actual report, too, by using "requested" rather than ordered in the same way Assad does in his statement. But Assad does insinuate that he didn't want to leave:

As the field situation in the area continued to deteriorate, the Russian military base itself came under intensified attack by drone strikes. With no viable means of leaving the base, Moscow requested that the base’s command arrange an immediate evacuation to Russia on the evening of Sunday 8th December. ...

At no point during these events did I consider stepping down or seeking refuge, nor was such a proposal made by any individual or party. The only course of action was to continue fighting against the terrorist onslaught.

If Russia forced Assad to flee, perhaps Putin can use that in his negotiations with HTS, the ruling rebel faction in Syria. But "forced" is an odd word to use for this situation, in which Assad fled behind Putin's skirts and then apparently resented the fact that Russia didn't want to fight a war on his behalf.