Yes, exactly - I was hoping to allude to that, but apparently wasn't clear in my writing. It seems to me that he has arrived at a "L'État, c'est moi" mentality, doing everything in his power (and consolidating as much additional power as possible) to stay out of prison, even (as you said) at the cost of destroying the country around him and the rest of the middle east, intentionally aggravating all the conflicts in the area, to be able to continuously yell out about crises that (in the mind of those who support him) necessitate his staying in power.