He’s so cold

This account of the last days of Bashar al-Assad’s dictatorship is a good case study in authoritarian goons knowing when to fold ’em. Al-Assad kept his staff hoping for him to mount the Bully Pulpit to save the regime while he slipped out the back door:

Aides to President Bashar al-Assad were brainstorming messaging ideas. A film crew had set up cameras and lights nearby. Syria’s state-run television station was ready to broadcast the finished product: an address by Mr. al-Assad announcing a plan to share power with members of the political opposition, according to three people who were involved in the preparation.

Working from the palace, Mr. al-Assad, who had wielded fear and force to maintain his authoritarian rule over Syria for more than two decades, had betrayed no sense of alarm to his staff, according to a palace insider whose office was near the president’s.

The capital’s defenses had been bolstered, Mr. al-Assad’s aides were told, including by the powerful 4th Armored Division of the Syrian Army, led by the president’s brother Maher al-Assad, the insider said.

They had all been deceived.

After dusk, the president slipped out of the capital, flying covertly to a Russian military base in northern Syria and then on a Russian jet to Moscow, according to six Middle Eastern government and security officials.

Maher al-Assad fled separately that evening with other senior military officers across the desert to Iraq, according to two Iraqi officials. His current location remains unknown.

Putin, for his part, was willing to offer a flight to Moscow, and then he has to turn his back on you:

In the first days of the rebels’ advance after Aleppo fell, Mr. al-Assad felt a sudden chill in his relationship with Mr. Putin, the palace insider and a Turkish official said: The Russian leader stopped taking his calls.

Let’s hope this isn’t the last puppet Putin drops like boiling borscht because he’s no longer useful.