There are many unknowns in the Syrian conflict but perhaps the most important of all is a lack of knowledge about the thoughts and intentions of Bashar al-Assad. Outside Syria, few are better-placed to cast some light on that than Professor David Lesch, who gave a fascinating psychological profile of the Syrian president during a talk in London last night.

Lesch, Professor of Middle East History at Trinity University in Texas, had numerous meetings with Assad over several years that began as part of his research for a book, The New Lion of Damascus. 

Assad is "not the typical Middle East dictator," Lesch said. He is naturally unassuming and initially he discouraged the sort of personality cult that had surrounded his father. For a short time after coming to power he also seemed genuinely interested in reform.

He was often viewed as a moderniser – based partly on his (fairly brief) spell in Britain while training as an ophthalmologist and his fondness for Phil Collins' music. But Lesch reminded the audience that there were other influences too: he had grown up in Syria, in the Assad family, and in an atmosphere charged with all the problems of Middle east politics.

Lesch suggested that Bashar really did set out with good intentions but "rather than changing the authoritarian system the authoritarian system changed him". He drew an analogy with the fictional gangster, Michael Corleone in The Godfather, who at first tried to be legitimate but ended up worse than his father.

Bashar's talk of foreign conspiracies against Syria is not mere rhetoric, Lesch said – he actually believes it (as do others in the regime). He feels that his efforts have been under-appreciated outside the country and that whatever he does, enemies will always demand more. In this context, a formative moment was his withdrawal of troops from Lebanon following Hariri's assassination in 2005 – a gesture that did not bring him the credit he thought he deserved.

After surviving the Lebanon crisis (the most serious crisis of his presidency at that stage) he became more confident and, in Lesch's words, "more comfortable with power". Surrounded by yes-men who insisted that everyone loved him, he started to believe the sycophants.

When the uprising began in 2011, his violent crackdown was "a push-button, convulsive response" to the threat to his regime: "You just don't give in to protests." Lesch said. The "reforms" he introduced (new laws on demonstrations and political parties, a new constitution, etc) were also a response to the protests but he never acknowledged them as concessions: they were presented as something the regime had been planning all along.

There was nothing in Lesch's talk to suggest that Assad might be amenable (or persuadable) towards the sort of compromises that would be needed for a negotiated end to the conflict. Lesch also argued that the resilience of the regime has been "grossly underestimated" by western media.

Despite these insights into Bashar's character, Lesch – whose latest book is called Syria: The Fall of the House of Assad – had less to offer in terms of new ideas about how the conflict might end. He proposed three scenarios, two of which he thought unlikely: a victory by one side or the other, or a solution through a political process.

As things stand at present, Lesch said, the most likely outcome is stalemate or partition, with different factions controlling different areas. Some have described this as "Lebanonisation" of Syria but he suggested it could be worse than that because of the competing foreign interests (in the Lebanese civil war there was "a gentleman's agreement" between Syria and Israel, he said).

Lesch did not foresee the regime ever regaining control over the whole of Syria, but in the meantime Assad seems to have modified his concept of what "victory" would entail. He has reversed Henry Kissinger's famous dictum that insurgents win by not losing and conventional armies lose by not winning. As far as Assad is concerned, not losing would amount to winning.

• Tweets from the talk can be found under the hashtag 
  #CaabuSyria.

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 7 February 2013.