Asma al-Assad Syrias First Lady

摘要

Before her husband answered Syria's peaceful revolution with ruthless slaughter, before the country began careering toward civil war, Western reporters routinely used words like "elegant" and "intelligent" to describe Asma al-Assad. A Vogue profile of the British-born, highly educated banker, written before the uprising and headlined "A Rose in the Desert," told of a lissome 36-year-old who drove her own SUV, wore Christian Louboutin shoes, and ran a "wildly democratic" house-hold-her three young kids could outvote their parents (including the president) on what furnishings to buy and where in the house to put them. The Syrian first lady came across as very much the young professional-and as the young mother trying to find a sane balance among all the demands on her time and energy. In her way, that's what she very probably was.