DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — Young and soft-spoken with a glamorous wife by his side, Syrian President Bashar Assad doesn't fit the mold of an Arab dictator.
Many Syrians at home and abroad insist he is a reformer led astray by those around him — but Assad's response to the protest movement boiling up around him may cost him the goodwill of those who still see him as an instrument of change.
"The Syrian people do not necessarily hate Bashar," said Bilal Saab, a Middle East expert from the University of Maryland at College Park who regularly briefs U.S. officials on Syria. "In fact, most Syrian youth love him. But he is the head of the unpopular and corrupt Syrian regime, so the …
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