Opinion | Biden is letting Assad off the hook, with dangerous consequences

The world is teaching all dictators a lesson right now about how to commit crimes against humanity, escape accountability and eventually get accepted back into polite society. And the Biden administration is helping write that playbook — by tacitly allowing the normalization of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Thirteen years after the start of the Syrian revolution, Syria has been crowded out of Western media by newer crises. But Assad continues to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity, including bombing, jailing and torturing thousands of civilians, while actively working to further destabilize the Middle East in partnership with his benefactors Russia and Iran.