A Political Psychologist’s Take on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad

“We do not kill our people,” a defiant President  Bashar al-Assad of Syria told ABC News’s Barbara Walters in a rare interview broadcast on Wednesday. Assad refused to take  responsibility  for ordering the bloody crackdown on the protest movement calling for his ouster, which the United Nations estimates has taken the lives of 4,000 people. The increasingly isolated Assad claimed most of the deaths were his own supporters. Now in their ninth month, the Syrian government continues to stubbornly insist the uprisings are  fueled by foreign governments  like the U.S. and Israel. Dr. Jerrold Post, director of the  political psychology program at George Washington University, developed a political psychology profile of Saddam Hussein which was featured prominently in the media after Iraq invaded of Kuwait. One of the nation’s leading political psychology experts, Dr. Post discusses what that interview says about Assad’s psychological profile.