Syria’s Assad to West: ‘I Am Tougher Than Gaddafi’

The Daily Beast reports:

Bashar al-Assad has taken to the Russian airwaves to tell the world that he’s in Syria to stay—and to warn the West and its allies of dire consequences if they try to force him from power.

The embattled Syrian president, whose government is mired in a bloody fight against a rebellion now pushing into its 20th month, vowed that he will “live and die in Syria” in an interview with the TV station Russia Today.

"I am not a puppet, and the West did not manufacture me in order that I leave to the West or any other country,” he said. “I am Syrian-made.”

The combative remarks, coming in the midst of a fresh round of speculation over the possibility of international intervention, seemed telegraphed to a Western audience. Speaking in English, Assad warned that the fallout from foreign engagement in Syria would be felt across the globe. “I do not believe the West is heading in this direction, but if they do, nobody can tell what will happen afterward," he said. "I think that the cost of a foreign invasion of Syria, if it happens, would be bigger than the entire world can bear.”...

Assad—who has threatened that the Syrian conflict will become a regional one if foreign powers enter the fray, while warning that Syria will become a hotbed of extremism if he goes—doubled down on those ideas in the interview with Russia Today, excerpts of which were posted to its website on Thursday ahead of a full airing on Friday. “We are the last stronghold of secularism and stability in the region,” he said. “[Foreign intervention] will have a domino effect that will affect the world from the Atlantic to the Pacific.”

“I am tougher than Gaddafi," Assad added, according to a tweet from Russia Today’s top editor, referring to Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan dictator who was killed last year after being deposed by a NATO-backed rebellion.