Unlike the fall of past dictators, such as the late Saddam Hussein of Iraq, those storming the palace didn’t so much trash the joint as dishevel it — for the most part.
The main entrance was littered with torn-down propaganda posters but the red carpet was left intact — as if to welcome those with designs on replacing Syria’s deposed family dynasty.A casually dressed group of men and women lounged on a palace sofa, smiling and flashing “V for victory” signs.The spectacle before foreign media marked the end of a family dynasty that did not last through its second generation.
It was a different palace from the one where Hafez al-Assad, months after taking the presidency in 1971, let a few staged moments during a high-level meeting with Egypt and Libya play out before a news camera.
Syria’s original strongman and his counterparts chatted amiably in cosy armchairs as staffers smoked cigarettes and tried to thrash out a draft constitution for a proposed Federation of Arab Republics.
Two decades later, al-Assad the elder had built a new palace — designed by celebrated Japanese architect Kenzo Tange — on a mountain plateau overlooking Damascus.
