Assad as Mickey Mouse

We posted this on our Tumblr page and it’s striking a nerve. What can you say about the allusion of Bashir Assad to Mickey Mouse beyond deathly ironic?

I wonder if there is something predictive to it also, though. Whereas Assad’s image has been more enigmatic, or generally off Western radar, perhaps (like Saddam and Gaddafi) Bashir is entering Western media’s visual state of buffoonery characteristic (maybe even requisite) of dictators prior to their demise.

From Oliver Hartung’s Signs of Syria (NYT Lens Blog).

(photo: Oliver Hartung caption: Between Damascus and As Suwayda. 2009.)