Syrian President Bashar Assad fled the country on Sunday, bringing to a dramatic close his nearly 14-year struggle to hold onto control as his country fragmented in a brutal civil war that became a proxy battlefield for regional and international powers. The exit of the 59-year-old Assad stood in stark contrast to his first months as Syria’s unlikely president in 2000, when many hoped he would be a young reformer after three decades of his father’s iron grip. At age 34, the Western-educated...