Despots of the Square-Kilometer Empires

Today, Syrian regime head Bashar Assad is confined to his square-kilometer close to Damascus with no chance of ever roaming in other parts of the war-torn country. General Qassem Soleimani, the Iranian master of PR, claims he prevented Assad from fleeing because Khamenei ordered him to stay put which, in practice, means the Syrian became a prisoner like Khamenei.

In autobiographical notes, Khamenei waxes lyrical about the joys of visiting Shiite "holy" shrines in Iraq. Today, he dares not set foot in an Iraq shaken by uprisings against his ideology. Worse still, fearful of visiting even Mash'had, Iran's own "holy" city, he has to be content with a hussainiyah he built near a "villa" confiscated by the revolution.

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