The Wisdom Of Assad

President Bashar Assad to the Wall Street Journal, last January:

If you did not see the need for reform before [the unrest] in Egypt and in Tunisia, it is too late to do any reform. […] if you do it just because of what happened (demonstrations) then it is going to be a reaction, not an action; and as long as what you are doing is a reaction you are going to fail.

Somewhere in Saudi Arabia, the Tunisian ex-president is laughing and sharing this with his friends..