Hafez al-Assad

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(b. Qardaha, Syria, 1928; d. 10 Jun. 2000) Syrian; President 1971 – 2000 A member of the minority Alawi sect, Assad joined the Ba'ath party at 16. After the party won power in 1963, he became Air Force Commander in 1965 and Defence Minister in 1966. The power struggle within the party between Dr Atassi's Marxist-orientated faction and Assad's nationalist faction was ended by the military coup of 1970 and Assad's election as President in 1971. Since then, he has ruthlessly repressed internal political opposition, particularly from religious extremists.

Assad has pursued an uncompromising foreign policy in the Middle East based on military aid and close ties with the USSR until its collapse. Its key features have been confrontation with Israel, notably in the war of October 1973 launched in conjunction with Egypt; opposition to repeated Israeli incursions into Lebanon; active support, and attempted control, of Palestinian guerrilla and terrorist groups; attempts to impose a pax syriana on Lebanon through the Syrian army and use of the Lebanese militia group Amal as a proxy; and bitter rivalry with Ba'athist Iraq, for example, in Syrian support for Iran in the Iran-Iraq War of 1980 – 8. Syria's participation in the military defeat and expulsion from Kuwait of Iraq transformed its relations with the West and the moderate Arab states in 1990 – 1. It opened the way to peace negotiations with Israel and the hope of regaining the Golan Heights, but a more immediate reward was to be given a free hand in Lebanon. Syria was able to suppress the revolt led by General Aoun in 1990 and to implement the 1989 Taif agreement to disarm and disband the Lebanese militia of the civil war period. The Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia was exempted as a resistance force to Israeli occupied south Lebanon and it has since been assisted by Syrian military intelligence.

Hafiz Assad (al-'Asad; born 1930) took power in Syria in 1970 and became president, a position he retained longer than any other person since Syrian independence in 1946.

Hafiz Assad was born on October 6, 1930 into a large, poor peasant family that lived in a rural, mountainous village of Qurdaha, southeast of the Syrian port city of Latakia. He was one of nine children of 'Ali Assad, a farmer, who opposed the French rule that prevailed in Syria prior to independence. Assad was a member of the minority Muslim religious sect called the Alawis and of the Haddadi Clan. The Alawis sect represented roughly 12 percent of the Syrian population but was dominant in the rural areas near Syria's coastline.

Assad received his primary education in his local village. Secondary education did not exist in the poor mountain regions of Syria in the 1940s so his family moved to the coast where Assad could receive the secondary education necessary to advance his career.

Assad's political views, personal attitudes, and social philosophy were molded in part by his Alawi background, the enormous poverty he witnessed in his youth, and the struggle he and his family experienced to improve their own lives. His original family name was said to be "Wahish," which means "wild beast," but the family apparently changed the name to "Asad," which means "lion." The original name reflected the lot associated with Alawis at that time. They were deprived, and many of their daughters often migrated to the rich homes in the Syrian capital of Damascus in order to seek work as servants or to take hard working, low paying jobs. Assad was determined from a young age that the next generation of Alawis would have a better life. As an adult, Assad had many colleagues who espoused his socialism, but few had the genuine humble background he did. His past resulted in both fierce determination and suspicions of his peers.

While still a teenager in the mid-1940s, Assad joined the Ba'th Party, which preached a mixture of socialism and Arab nationalism. The Ba'th Party at that time had a large following in the Alawi regions in part because the party advocated secularism in public life and a new non-sectarian national community, something always popular for many in minority groups.

His Military Career

When he was admitted to the Homs Military Academy in 1952, Assad embarked on a military career. He was attracted by the hope that a military career would offer good pay and a chance for advancement. Three years later he graduated as a lieutenant in the Syrian Air Force, one of the first Alawis to join that service. In the service, he continued his political activities but also became a proficient combat pilot and a master in aerial maneuvers. He often performed his acrobatics on parade days in the skies above Damascus.

His expertise won him a place to further study military science in Russia in 1957 at a time of intense political activity in Syria which led to the 1958 union between Syria and Egypt. In the process of that union, the careers of many known Ba'th Party members in the armed forces were sacrificed, and Assad and some of his colleagues were assigned to posts in rural Egypt, far from their political bases. While in Egypt, Captain Assad joined forces with two other exiled Alawi officers - Salah Jadid and Muhammad 'Umran - and formed a secret military committee dedicated to terminating the union with Egypt and to throwing out the old Ba'th Party civilian leadership which had promoted the union in the first place.

Although some Ba'th officers participated in the 1961 coup which ended the union with Egypt, several, including Assad, were forced to temporarily quit the air force in a political purge. Assad then worked for two years as an official of the Ministry of Sea Transportation, a period during which he concentrated on Ba'th Party activities and, with other members of the secret military committee, planned the March 8, 1963, revolution which brought the Ba'th Party to power in Syria.

Following the Ba'th Party takeover, Assad was appointed commander of the air force with the rank of major. In 1964, he was promoted to the rank of general and placed on the party's regional command, and a year later he was made commander-in-chief of the air force. In that capacity, he joined ranks with Salah Jadid in 1966 to overthrow the Ba'th government of Amin al-Hafiz. In the new government, he became minister of defense.

The year 1967 was not a happy one for Syria or for Assad. The June defeat in the Six Day War at the hands of Israel was a bitter experience. Syria had half its air force planes destroyed on the ground and the troops lost one-seventh of Syria's territory to the Israelis. As defense minister, Assad should have been a target for major blame, but he deftly passed it along to the clumsy party apparatus and leadership for having ruined the military prior to the war due to its purges and choosing party over national interests. An absolute necessity for Assad was to rebuild and strengthen the armed forces, while others in the leadership - many of them radical and doctrinaire Marxists - sought consolidation of power and the championing of Marxist economic development. Assad was able to outmaneuver many opponents in 1968 and 1969 and challenged the party leadership and Salah Jadid. He even tried in 1969 to take over the government but was thwarted by Soviet pressure. The stage, however, had been set for a showdown between Assad and Jadid.

Assad Takes the Presidency

Assad did his homework well in the party, and when the showdown came with Jadid, he prevailed and took over the reins of government in November 1970. At that time Assad became prime minister. Four months later he was elected president, a position to which he was re-elected several times. To many observers his bloodless coup in 1970 represented merely the replacement of one Alawi officer with another. But below the surface there were several changes, including a shift away from a solely Marxist-socialist socio-economic policy in internal affairs and away from the uncompromising orientations in regional and international affairs which had isolated Syria from its neighbors in the post-1967 war period.

Assad was associated with a pragmatic group which sought a more moderate path of socialism in social and economic policy. This would allow Syria's commercial sector a freer existence and a more flexible and realistic foreign policy which would permit the ability to adjust to events and changing circumstances without the constraints of any ideological straightjacket. One factor precipitating Assad's coup was a fear among some that the directions in which policies were headed under Jadid were destined to undermine the whole Ba'th revolution on one level and the new found prominence of elements of the Alawi community on another.

The political position and power of Assad and the unprecedented political continuity he provided after 1970 was the result of his three principal pillars of support: the army, the Ba'th Party, and his Alawi community. In the early 1980s, as various groups tested Assad and his leadership, and as Assad suffered a heart attack, he had to rely more on an elaborate system of security, with many key security positions occupied by Alawi officers, including his brothers, cousins and nephews.

Serious outbursts of civil unrest occurred in Syria between 1979 and 1982, and these prompted increasingly heavy-handed, often ruthless, measures by security forces of the Assad government. Discontent of Alawi rule and perceived corruption and abuse of power, along with a stagnating economy burdened by heavy military expenditures, and a developing Muslim fundamentalist challenge to Assad's rule, was fueled by resentment on the part of the Syrian Sunni Muslim majority especially in the northern Syrian towns of Aleppo and Hama. Well over 10,000 Syrians died in Hama in 1982 when security forces leveled some one-fourth of the city.

The Assad presidency of Syria was a curious combination of pragmatism and decisive action, of cool and deliberate approaches to problem solving and rash impulses, of dogged determination and live-and-let-live policies, and of impassioned rhetoric and quiet diplomacy. His opportunism, astuteness, and ability to adjust put opponents off guard time and time again.

Assad's presidency, in the eyes of many Syrians, was strengthened by his handling of foreign policy matters and his emergence as a regional figure of stature. Assad was a champion of the causes of Arab unity, Palestinian nationalism, and confrontation with Israel. He consistently said that a just and lasting solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict would only occur when the Arab world attained military parity with Israel, and he roundly attacked Egypt for breaking Arab ranks to negotiate with Israel.

A Tough Foreign Policy

His hard line toward peace negotiations and opposition to direct talks with Israel was consistent and was clearly demonstrated in his strong opposition to the Camp David Accords and the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt. He also opposed the May 17, 1983, Lebanese-Israeli withdrawal agreement, which he saw as a violation of Lebanese sovereignty and a threat to Syrian and Arab security. Syrian intentions and those of Assad in Lebanon may be unknown, but it is clear that Assad wanted a government in Lebanon he could trust and control and that he could not tolerate a Lebanon which had any separate relationship, overt or covert, with Israel.

Assad also sought to control the Palestinian national movement in order to prevent any Palestinian leadership from seeking a separate peace with Israel either directly or through Jordan. This stance would protect Syria from isolation and promote Syria as the champion of the Palestinian cause.

Assad's handling of relations with the United States and Soviet Union demonstrated the same qualities seen in his handling of other issues. While he came to rely heavily on the Soviets for military aid and political backing, he showed no intention of sacrificing Syria's independence to Soviet interference. His views of the United States were mostly negative, but he wanted to leave the door open to better ties. Assad was deeply suspicious of American policies in the region, in part because of American economic and military support for Israel, but he clearly recognized the importance of maintaining some relationship with all world powers.

Assad has carved out a unique role for himself and Syria in the Middle East peace process. He has been seen as trying to placate many sides involved in the process from the United States and the Palestinians to mending a long standing rift with Jordan. Assad was determined to remain true to his own personal agenda rather than another nation's interests and sought to act accordingly. Assad's feeble attempts at trying to come to terms with Israel and the possible return to Syria of the Golan Heights has been his in the mid 1990s. The emphasis on Syria as the one who held the key to Middle Eastern peace shifted the spotlight away from the allegations of massive domestic terrorism campaigns and rampant human rights violations Assad undertook in order to maintain power and thwart the chance for armed resistance to his policies. Wary of being viewed as the one who gave in, Assad was choosing to play his trump very carefully.

The longevity of the Assad regime in Syria resulted from Assad's ability to keep control of many diverse groups in Syria and his handling of regional issues, especially Lebanon and his confrontation with Israel. Syria's wars with Israel in 1967, 1973, and 1980 had a negative impact on the country, but Assad brought his armed forces back each time with more weapons, more men, and more sophisticated weaponry. The costs for Syria of Assad's continuous arms buildup were enormous because of the increasing share of Syria's resources needed to fuel the armed forces. President Assad was Syria's longest surviving head of state and a regional leader everyone had to reckon with, although he continued to confront and overcome serious domestic and regional challenges.

Further Reading

Assad and recent events in Syria are discussed prominently in several books written about post-independence Syria. Among the better volumes are: Syria by Tabitha Petran (1972); Syria under the Ba'th, 1963-1966 by Itamar Rabinovich (1972); Syria and the Lebanese Crisis by Adeed Dawisha (1980); Syria, Modern State in an Ancient Land by John F. Devlin (1983); The Ba'th and Syria, 1947-1982: the Evolution of Ideology, Party and State by Robert W. Olson (1983); and The Islamic Struggle in Syria by Umar Ab-Allah (1984).

For further reading on Assad see also "Just Kidding," New Republic (January 8-15, 1996); "Holy Terror," New Republic (April 22, 1996); "The Shame of Lebanon," New York Review (April 25, 1996) and "Preparing for War," Time (December 9, 1996).

1930 - 2000

Syrian air force officer and statesman, late president of the Syrian Arab Republic.

Born in Qurdaha, near Latakia, Asad was the ninth of eleven children of Ali Sulayman, a peasant of Alawi origin whose strength, bravery, and chivalry made him a pillar of his village. Until his death in 1963, Ali carried on the family tradition of mediating quarrels and giving protection to the weak. Asad was one of a handful of boys in his village to receive formal education when the French opened primary schools in remote villages. From his father he acquired a lifelong determination not to submit when pressures mounted.

This family legacy offers an important clue to Asad's proud and vigorous personality. While a student, Asad joined the Baʿth party in 1947 and became one of its stalwarts in Latakia. After graduation from secondary school in 1951, he entered the military academy at Homs and later the flying school at Aleppo, graduating as a pilot officer in 1955. He then plunged into the intrigues of the highly politicized and faction-ridden officer corps, traveling to Egypt in 1955 and to the Soviet Union in 1958 for further military instruction. Asad returned to Egypt in 1959, having already joined the Baʿth party as a follower of Zaki al-Arsuzi, an Alawi from Alexandretta and one of the three founders of the Baʿth party. With four fellow officers who also followed al-Arsuzi, Asad founded in Cairo in early 1960 a secret organization they called the Military Committee. These young men had never admired the other two Baʿth party founders, Michel Aflaq and Salah al-Din al-Bitar, considering them to be middle-class Damascene theorists of the Baʿth, and believing that they had caused the party's demise by entering impulsively into an ill-fated union with Egypt in February 1958. Egypt's president, Gamal Abdel Nasser, distrusted political parties, and as a condition for accepting union with Syria, he had insisted on the dissolution of the Baʿth party.

Rise to Power

Being Baʿthists who aspired to positions of dominance in Syrian public life, Asad and his colleagues in the Military Committee were very careful not to reveal the existence of their organization to Egyptian intelligence. Following the breakup of the Egypt-Syria union in September 1961, Asad was jailed briefly in Egypt before returning to Syria, where he was granted indefinite leave from the air force and demoted to a low-paid clerk position in the Ministry of Economics. At times incarcerated in Lebanon as well as in Syria, he spent 1962 conspiring with his colleagues on the Military Committee to take power in Syria. In March 1963 he played a leading role in the coup that brought Baʿth officers to power. Following the coup, Asad was promoted to major general and made commander of the air force in 1964. From 1965, he was a member of the regional (qutri) and national (qawmi) Baʿth High Command.

During the seven years following the 1963 coup, Asad mastered the techniques of survival in the factional struggles that plagued Syria. Rejecting Aflaq and the social and economic order from which he came, Asad sided with the radical faction of Salah Jadid and Muhammad Umran, making in the process both lasting friendships and permanent enemies. Umran kept an eye on the government machine, Jadid ran the army, and Asad helped the Military Committee extend its networks in the armed forces by bringing every unit under its close control and by ensuring that Committee loyalists occupied the sensitive commands.

For ideological guidance, Asad sought the advice of Aflaq's early rival, the Alawite Zaki al-Arsuzi, who contributed editorials to the party and army press and provided Asad with insights until Arsuzi's death in 1968. In February 1966, following a bloody intraparty shootout, Asad was made Minister of Defense, thus moving very close to the top of the government. He was then promoted in 1968 to the rank of lieutenant general. To get to the top, he had to neutralize or purge the leftist team of Jadid and the officers who supported them. Asad believed the radicalism of the Jadid-led team caused Syria's isolation in the Arab world, and the army it tried to build was ill prepared to cope with Israel. In February 1969 he gained control of the government and party command but agreed to keep some of his adversaries in positions of power. In November 1970 Asad seized full control in what he termed a "corrective movement," purging and dismissing his opponents and detaining their leaders, including president and prime minister Nur al-Din al-Atasi.

With Asad's rise to power, a new chapter in the domestic and foreign policies of Syria began to unfold. On the domestic front, Asad sought to establish his rule on a firm footing, primarily by building stable state institutions and by wooing disenchanted social classes with measures of political and economic liberalization. Socialism, retained as a tenet in the rhetoric of the ruling party, became etatism or state capitalism. The Asad regime also relaxed restrictions on the private sector. Rapid economic growth, mostly through public expenditure, was the primary objective of both economic and development policies. In response, the Syrian economy grew at an annual rate exceeding 9 percent throughout the 1970s. After 1973 additional rounds of economic liberalization followed in 1979, 1987, and 1991.

Asad emphasized the need for reconciliation and national unity after the divisive years of the Jadid-led faction. To heighten the impression of a fresh start, he introduced a more liberal climate for writers and novelists and set about courting former Baʿthists who had been generally out of favor with the previous regime. Stable political structures also emerged after Asad's coup. A People's Council or parliament was established in 1971, and the following year, the Progressive National Front, an institutionalized coalition of the Baʿth party with a collection of smaller parties, was set up. In 1973, a new constitution was promulgated. On the other hand, Asad allowed no opposition to his rule. He ruthlessly suppressed the Muslim Brotherhood, virtually eliminating its resistance during the Hama uprising of February 1982.

Asad also neutralized or en ded factional struggles within the army and the Baʿth party. The institutional pillars of his rule were the army, a multilayered intelligence network, formal state structures, and revitalized party congresses. The People's Council in 1971 appointed Asad president following nomination by the Baʿth command; thereafter, plebiscites regularly endorsed his re-election
for seven-year terms. The consolidation of the state, accompanied by a concentration of power in Asad's hands, was accepted by the political elite as a necessary measure to confront the threat the country and regime faced following its defeat and occupation in the Arab-Israel War of June 1967. Asad's state-building was largely dependent on external resources, with the Soviet Union providing the arms to rebuild the military and Arab oil money funding an expansion of the bureaucracy and the co-opting of the bourgeoisie.

A Three-Stage Foreign Policy

In foreign policy, Asad called into question the radical policies of his predecessors, setting Syria on a new, more pragmatic course that took greater account of Israel's military superiority. Three stages of Syria's foreign policy in the Asad years can be identified. The first lasted from 1970 to 1974. During this stage, Asad moved quickly to improve relations with Egypt, which had been strained since the 1961 breakup of its union with Syria. He even joined the stillborn federation of Egypt, Libya, and the Sudan in November 1970. He also set about putting Syria's relations with Lebanon, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and Tunisia on a friendly basis. To show good faith toward Saudi Arabia, he closed a Damascus-based, anti-Saudi radio station. The Arab-Israel War of October 1973, at least in part, was an efficiently coordinated Syrian-Egyptian-Saudi affair. While not a military success, it proved a political victory for Asad. Although Syria failed to regain the Golan Heights, he derived a high degree of legitimacy and considerable political leverage from a credible challenge to the Israeli status quo as well as from the Arab oil embargo initiated in response to the war.

Asad also moved very quickly to convince the Soviet Union that Syria was a reliable and valuable regional partner. This entailed facilitating a stable Soviet presence in the region to curtail American influence. Soviet arms deliveries proved vital to Syria's relative success in the 1973 war and were stimulated later by Egypt's separate peace with Israel and Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon. Soviet military power expanded steadily under Asad's rule in an effort to give Syria sufficient parity with Israel to constitute a credible deterrent and to give backing to Syrian diplomacy. The role of the Soviet Union as patron-protector also served as a deterrent to Israeli freedom of action against Syria. As for the United States, mutual hostility and mistrust kept the two countries diplomatically apart until the 1990s. In Asad's view, the United States biased the regional balance of power in Israel's favor by ensuring its military superiority and also by dividing the Arabs, notably by detaching Sadat's Egypt from the anti-Israeli coalition.

Stage Two

In the second stage, which lasted from 1974 to the end of the 1980s, there were three major modifications in Syria's foreign policy. The first was the revision of its alliance strategy with Egypt; it now sought to isolate Egypt in the Arab world. The aim was to discredit Anwar al-Sadat and eliminate any possibility of a Camp David - type agreement between Israel and other Arab states, especially Jordan and Lebanon. Asad worked to bring neighboring Lebanon and Jordan, together with the Palestinians, into the Syrian orbit; and in 1983 and 1984, he struggled mightily to kill the May 1983 Israel-Lebanon accord, brokered by U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz. Soviet support was pivotal here in giving Asad the confidence necessary to challenge Israeli power and U.S. diplomacy in Lebanon following the 1982 Israeli invasion.

A second change concerned Asad's relations with the leader of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, who remained Asad's most implacable Arab adversary. Nonpersonal considerations notwithstanding, including the party schism and the geopolitical rivalry that divided the two countries, Asad swallowed his pride and went to Baghdad in 1978, following Egypt's entente with Israel. In June 1979 he again visited Iraq in an unsuccessful bid for a federation between the two countries. Suspecting that the federation scheme was intended to undermine his position of dominance in Iraq, Saddam did not bother to meet Asad at the airport and later accused Syria of hatching a plot to overthrow him. The following year, when the Iran-Iraq war broke out, Asad condemned Iraq and backed Iran. Asad denounced the Iraqi invasion of Iran as the wrong war at the wrong time with the wrong enemy, rightly predicting it would detract Arab attention from the Israeli threat. The alliance with Iran proved helpful in the aftermath of the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, when Iranian-sponsored Islamic resistance to Israel helped check a dangerous challenge to the Asad regime. Over time, Syria and Iran became increasingly close partners, to the displeasure of the rulers of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, who saw in Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's revolution a potentially fatal threat to their regimes and to the territorial integrity of their countries.

The third change concerned Syria's relations with Israel. The process of change in this regard was relatively fast in getting under way. The first visible step was Syria's acceptance of UN Security Council Resolution 242 in March 1972. In the past, Asad had reiterated Syria's rejection of Resolution 242 on the grounds that without redressing the military and political balance with Israel, the Arabs could not force Israel to solve the Palestine question and withdraw from the Arab territories it had seized in June 1967.

A more tangible step was the May 1974 disengagement agreement between Syria and Israel, negotiated under the auspices of the U.S. government in the wake of the Arab-Israel War of 1973. The Soviet Union remained neutral except for hints in the Soviet press warning Asad not to be tricked into accepting half measures. One significant aspect of the agreement was the two sides' declaration that the disengagement of forces was only a step toward a just and durable peace based on UN Resolutions 242 and 338. Another was Asad's oral commitment not to allow any guerrilla raids from the Syrian side of the disengagement line.

Stage Three

The third stage in Syrian foreign policy, dating from the end of the 1980s, concerned its entente with Egypt, its participation in the U.S. - led alliance against Iraq, and its subsequent involvement in the U.S. - sponsored Middle East peace process that began with the Madrid Conference in October 1991. These events transpired in a milieu in which the negative impact of the decay of pan-Arabism in the 1980s was compounded by deteriorating domestic economic conditions as Syria wrestled with a prolonged economic crisis from 1985 to 1990. Triggered by a sudden decline in oil prices and foreign aid, the economic problems of the Asad regime were rooted in a history of excessive military spending, stifling economic regulations, and political corruption that combined to distort markets and drain resources.

Whereas in the previous stage Syria had been adamantly opposed to Egypt, it abandoned its policy of seeking "strategic parity" with Israel in 1988 and 1989 and entered into an alliance with the Egyptian government of Husni Mubarak, a pact involving de facto acceptance of the Camp David Accords. These moves led to Syria's entry, for the first time, into face-to-face negotiations with Israel. Not only did Syria drop its insistence on an international peace conference under UN sponsorship, but it helped to create the psychological climate for promising bilateral negotiations with Israel.

The end of the Cold War thus marked a period of transition for Asad. Faced with a hostile international environment, he adapted begrudgingly to the new power balance. The implosion of the Soviet Union, and its withdrawal as arms provider and reliable protector, exposed Syria to Western animosity for its long-time opposition to the Middle East peace process. Asad rightly concluded that the struggle with Israel would now have to take a diplomatic form and would require détente with the United States, which alone had leverage over Israel. The Gulf War coalition thus provided an opportunity for Asad to trade adhesion to the coalition for at least limited U.S. recognition of Syrian interests. In the process, Asad hoped to influence the new world order, as opposed to becoming its victim.

Syrian entry into the Madrid peace process marked not an abandonment of long-term goals, but their pursuit by other means. The containment of Israel remained center-stage in Syrian strategic thinking. Asad still hoped to maximize territorial recovery and minimize the concessions Israel expected in return. While Syria displayed newfound flexibility in the talks, negotiations eventually stalled over Israeli insistence on a surveillance station on Mount Hermon, which Asad saw as an affront to Syrian sovereignty, and the 1996 Likud election victory in Israel. Talks with Israel resumed after the 1999 election of Ehud Barak but later broke down over control of Golan water resources and Israeli insistence on modifying the pre-1967 border around Lake Tiberias.

As the transition from a state of belligerency to one of coexistence with Israel continued, Asad initiated a new round of economic reforms. The decade of the 1990s saw the slow dismantling of the public sector and the socialist measures associated with it. Private investment overtook public investment, and agriculture became almost exclusively the domain of the private sector. At the same time, resistance to additional economic reforms from members of the bureaucracy, the Baʿth party, and the military, together with widespread patronage, waste, and corruption, continued to constitute serious obstacles to rational economic policies. Moreover, while the continuation of economic reforms and the peace process generated pressures for greater political openness, political liberalization, especially democratization, remained anathema to the Asad regime.

The principles governing Asad's foreign and domestic policies have been compared to those that governed the policy of British statesman Lord Palmerston (1784 - 1865), who once said, "We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow." In the execution of these principles, Asad proved himself a cautious and calculating tactician as well as a master politician. President Hafiz al-Asad died on 10 June 2000. He was replaced by his second son, Bashshar al-Asad, on 17 July 2000.

Bibliography

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— MUHAMMAD MUSLIH UPDATED BY RONALD BRUCE ST JOHN

The president of syria from 1971 to 2000. Assad was recognized as a hard-liner among Arab politicians for his hostility to Israel. At home he brutally suppressed islamic fundamentalism. He gave active support to terrorism, but he cast his lot with the United Nations against Iraq in the Persian Gulf War. He long insisted that Israel hand back to Syria the Golan Heights, which it had conquered in the Six-Day War.

Hafez al-Assad حافظ الأسد
President of Syria Military rule
In office 22 February 1971 – 10 June 2000
Preceded by	Ahmad al-Khatib
Succeeded by	Abdul Halim Khaddam (Interim)
Prime Minister of Syria
In office 21 November 1970 – 3 April 1971
Preceded by	Nureddin al-Atassi
Succeeded by	Abdul Rahman Kleifawi
Born	6 October 1930(1930-10-06) Qardaha, French Mandate of Syria
Died	10 June 2000 (aged 69) Damascus, Syria
Political party	Baath Party
Spouse(s)	Aniseh (née Makhluf)
Religion	Islam (Alawite)

Hafez al-Assad (Arabic: حافظ الأسد‎ Ḥāfiẓ al-Asad) (October 6, 1930 – June 10, 2000) was the president of Syria for three decades. Assad's rule stabilized and consolidated the power of the country's central government after decades of coups and counter-coups. He was succeeded by his son and current president Bashar al-Assad in 2000.

Contents 1 Early life 2 In government 3 Presidency 3.1 Police state 3.2 Stability and reforms 3.3 Currency crisis 3.4 Muslim Brotherhood Uprising 3.5 Challenge from Rifaat 3.6 Foreign policy 3.7 Israel 3.8 Lebanon 3.9 Palestinians 3.10 Iraq 4 Death and succession 5 Family 6 See also 7 Book References 8 References 9 External links

Early life

Hafez al-Assad standing on the wing of a Fiat G.46-4B, with fellow cadets at the Syrian AF Academy outside Aleppo, 1952/51.

Hafez al-Assad was born in the town of Qardaha in the Latakia province of western Syria (then a French Mandate) into a minority Alawite family. He was the first member of his family to attend high school. Some say his family's name was Wa'hish (or Beast in Arabic) and they changed the family name. He attended Jules Jammal High School in Lattakia from which he graduated. He joined the Baath Party in 1946 at the age of 16. Because his family had no money to send him to university, Assad went to the Syrian Military Academy (where he met Mustafa Tlass) and received a free higher education. He showed considerable talent and the military sent him for additional training in the Soviet Union. As a pilot during the 1950s, he flew the Gloster Meteor jet fighter, amongst other types. He rose through the ranks and became an important figure in the military.

He opposed the 1958 union between Syria and Egypt which created the United Arab Republic (UAR). Stationed in Cairo, he worked with other officers to end the union, sticking to his pan-Arab ideals while arguing that the UAR concentrated too much power in the hands of Gamal Abdel Nasser's regime. As a result, Assad was briefly imprisoned by the Egyptian authorities at the breakup of the union in 1961. Tlass escorted his family to Syria, where he later rejoined them.

In the chaos that followed the dissolution of the UAR, a coalition of left-wing groups led by the Baath Party seized power in Syria. Assad was appointed head of the airforce in 1964. The state was officially ruled by Amin Hafiz, a Sunni Muslim, but was in practice dominated by a coterie of young Alawite Baathists.

In government

General Hafez al-Assad in 1970, during The Corrective Revolution.

In 1966, the Baath launched a coup d'etat within the government and cleared out the other parties from the government. Assad became Minister of Defence and wielded considerable influence over government policy. However, there was much tension between the dominant radical wing of the Baath Party, which promoted an aggressive foreign policy and rapid social reform, and Assad's more pragmatic, military-based faction. After being discredited by the failure of the Syrian military in the Six-Day War in 1967, and enraged by the aborted Syrian intervention in the Jordanian-Palestinian Black September war, the government faced conflict within its ranks. By the time President Nureddin al-Atassi and the de facto leader, deputy secretary general of the Baath Party Salah Jadid, realized the threat and ordered Assad and Tlass be stripped of all party and government power, it was too late. Assad swiftly launched a bloodless intra-party coup, The Corrective Revolution of 1970. The party was purged, Atassi and Jadid jailed, and Assad loyalists installed in key posts throughout the government.

Presidency

Police state

Al-Assad inherited a dictatorial government shaped by years of unstable military rule, and lately organized along one-party lines after the Baathist coup. He increased repression and attempted to secure his domination of every sector of society through a vast web of police informers and agents. Under his rule, Syria turned genuinely authoritarian. He was made the object of a state-sponsored cult of personality, which depicted as a wise, just, and strong leader of Syria and of the Arab world in general.

Syria under Assad never quite reached the levels of repression practiced in neighboring Iraq, ruled by a rivaling Baathist faction. Where Saddam Hussein's policies of perpetual state terrorism aimed to secure his rule through fear, Hafez al-Assad took a more sophisticated approach: rather than immediately brutalizing restive communities, his government often bribed or threatened dissidents. Only after milder forms of persuasion had failed would swords come out. Then, the government could be counted on to act with unflinching cruelty in order to intimidate all would-be dissidents.

Stability and reforms

Statue of Hafez al-Assad in central Damascus.

Whilst dictatorial, the government of al-Assad initially achieved some popularity for bringing stability to the country, which had experienced dozens of attempted coups since 1948. He also implemented many social reforms and infrastructure projects, notably the Thawra (Revolution) dam on the Euphrates River. It was built with Soviet assistance, and still supplies much of Syria's electricity. Public schooling and other reforms were extended to larger segments of the population, and a notable rise in living standards occurred. The government's secularism meant that many members of religious minorities, such as the Alawites, Druze, and Christians, naturally supported Assad, fearing a return to historic persecution under a Sunni Islamist successor government to Assad.

Assad also continued previous Baath policies by overseeing massive increases in Syria's military strength (again with Soviet support) and by maintaining a strong Arab nationalist position. School curricula and the state-controlled media gave much attention to the glorious past of Syria and the Arabs, and portrayed al-Assad's government as the lone uncorrupted champion of the Arab nation against Western imperialism and aggression. This propaganda aimed to legitimize the government, but also to unify the diverse and fractured Syrian society, and instill a sense of national pride among the populace.

Currency crisis

During 1985-2000, Assad's administration failed to arrest the 90 per cent fall in the worth of the Syrian Pound from 3 to 47 to the US Dollar.

Muslim Brotherhood Uprising

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In 1979, the Syrian public was shocked by a chain of assassinations which took place starting in the artillery school in Aleppo. No one could identify who was responsible for these assassinations. After almost a year, a member from the group believed to be behind the assassinations was injured and taken into custody by the Syrian intelligence system. He was identified as a member of the Muslim Brotherhood party. The party's goals were to eliminate all persons who had strong ties with the government or Baath party, focusing on Baathists who were educated and had a good reputation within the government, or army high ranking members who were relatives of Assad family or Alawites. It took The Syrian intelligence system a long time to penetrate the Muslim Brotherhood and diminish its power. Unfortunately, the Syrian security forces were, in some incidents, brutal. Many innocent civilians died in the battles between the army and the party members. Some sources estimate that the number of civilians killed was in between 150,000 to 200,000. The violence damaged the national growth of the Syrian economy. The Muslim Brotherhood organization aimed to weaken the government's authority, hoping that Sunni Muslims in the army would overthrow the Alawite-dominated government.

Challenge from Rifaat

Rifaat and Hafez-al Assad

In 1983, Assad suffered a heart attack and was confined to hospital. He named a six-man governing council to run the country in his absence, among them long-time Defense Minister Mustafa Tlass. All six were Sunnis, possibly because they had no independent power over his Alawite-dominated government, and were thus less likely to try to seize power. Despite this, rumors spread that Assad was dead or nearly so, and indeed his condition was serious. In 1984, Rifaat al-Assad attempted to use the security forces under his control to seize power. His Defence Company troops of some 50,000 men, complete with tanks and helicopters, began putting up roadblocks throughout Damascus, and tensions between Hafez loyalists and Rifaat supporters came close to all-out war. The stand-off was not ended until Hafez, still ill, rose from his bed to reassume power and speak to the nation. He transferred command of the Defence Company and, without formal accusations, sent Rifaat on an indefinite "work visit" to France.

Foreign policy

Israel

Hafez al-Assad (right) with soldiers on the Golan front in October, 1973.

Hafez al-Assad (right) greets Richard Nixon on his arrival at Damascus airport in 1974.

Al-Assad's foreign policy was shaped by the relation of Syria to Israel, although this conflict both preceded him and persists after his death. During his presidency, Syria played a major role in the 1973 Arab-Israeli war. The war is, despite heavy losses and Israeli advances, presented by the Syrian government as a victory, as Syria regained some territory that had been occupied in 1967 through peace negotiations headed by Henry Kissinger. Since then Assad-led Syria has carefully respected the UN-monitored ceasefire line in the occupied Golan Heights. The Syrian government has denied the state of Israel any recognition, and long preferred to refer to it as a "Zionist Entity". Only in the mid-1990s did Hafez moderate his country's policy towards Israel, as he realized the loss of Soviet support meant a different balance of power in the Middle East. Pressed by the United States, he engaged in negotiations on the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights, but these talks ultimately failed. Al-Assad believed that what constituted Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza, were an integral part of "Southern Syria."^[1][2]

Lebanon

Main article: Syrian presence in Lebanon

Syria deployed troops to Lebanon in 1976, officially in response to a request from the Lebanese government for Syrian military intervention during the Lebanese Civil War. It is alleged that the Syrian presence in Lebanon began earlier with its involvement in as-Saiqa, a Palestinian militia composed primarily of Syrians. The Arab League agreed to send a peacekeeping force mostly formed by Syrian troops. The initial goals were to save the Lebanese government from being overun by the Left and the Palestinian militancy. Critics allege that this eventually turned into an occupation by 1982, which is more or less not disputed within the Lebanese community. The Syrian presence ended in 2005, due to the UN resolution 1559 after the Rafiq Hariri assassination and the March 14 protests.

Palestinians

The hostile attitude to Israel meant vocal support for the Palestinians, but that did not translate into friendly relations with their organizations. Hafez al-Assad was always wary of independent Palestinian organizations, as he aimed to bring the Palestinian issue under Syrian control in order to use it as a political tool. He soon developed an implacable animosity towards Yassir Arafat's PLO, against which Syria fought bloody battles in Lebanon.

As Arafat allegedly moved the PLO in a more moderate direction, supposedly seeking compromise with Israel, al-Assad also feared regional isolation, and he resented the PLO underground's operations in Palestinian refugee camps in Syria. Arafat was depicted by Syria as a rogue madman and an American marionette, and after accusing him of supporting the Hama revolt, al-Assad backed the 1983 Abu Musa rebellion inside Arafat's Fatah-movement. A number of unsuccessful Syrian attempts to kill Arafat were also made.

Iraq

Even though Iraq was ruled by another branch of the Baath Party, Assad's relations with Saddam Hussein were extremely strained. Hostile rhetoric was intense, and until Saddam's fall in 2003, Iraq was listed in Syrian passports as one of the two countries no Syrian citizen could visit (the other being Israel). But with the exception of a few border guard skirmishes and mutual support for cross-border raids by opposition groups, no heavy fighting broke out until 1991, when Syria joined the US-led UN coalition to expel Iraq from Kuwait.

Death and succession

Assad had originally groomed his son, Basil al-Assad as his successor, but he died in a car accident in 1994. Assad then called back a second son, Bashar, and put him in intensive military and political training, with Bashar becoming a staff colonel in the military of Syria.^[3] Despite some concerns of unrest within the government, the succession ultimately went smoothly, and Bashar holds office today. Hafez al-Assad is buried together with Basil in a mausoleum in his hometown of Qardaha.

Family

The Assad family.

Family connections are presently an important part of Syrian politics. Several members of Hafez al-Assad's closest family have held positions within the government since his ascent to power. Parts of the family fortune has reached their Alawite tribe in Qardaha and environs.

• Rifaat al-Assad, brother. Formerly a powerful security chief; now in exile in France after attempting a coup in 1984
• Jamil al-Assad, brother. Parliamentarian, commander of a minor militia.
• Anisah Makhlouf, wife.
• Basil al-Assad, son. Original candidate for succession. Died in 1994.
• Dr.Bashar al-Assad, son. President of Syria, ophthalmologist and surgeon.
• Majd al-Assad, son. Electrical engineer.
• Lt. Col. Maher al-Assad, son. Head of Presidential Guard.
• Dr. Bushra al-Assad, daughter. Pharmacist. Said to have an influence on both Hafez and Bashar, her opinion is significant when it comes to politics. Married to Gen. Assef Shawqat.
• Gen. Adnan Makhlouf, cousin of Anisah Makhlouf. Commands the Republican Guard.
• Adnan al-Assad, cousin. Leader of "Struggle companies" militia in Damascus.
• Muhammad al-Assad, cousin. Another leader of the "Struggle companies".
• Gen. Assef Shawqat, son-in-law. Present head of military intelligence.

See also

• Alawites
• Bani Assad
• Baath Party

Book References

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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Hafez al-Assad

• Fisk, Robert (2001, 3rd edition). Pity the Nation: Lebanon at War. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-280130-9 (pp. 181–187)
• Hitti Philip K. (2002).History of Syria Including Lebanon and Palestine, Vol. 2 (ISBN 1-931956-61-8)
• Firzli, Nicola Y. (1973). Al-Baath wa-Lubnân [Arabic only] ("The Baath and Lebanon"), Beirut: Dar-al-Tali'a Books.
• Firzli, Nicola Y. (1981). The Iraq-Iran Conflict. Paris: EMA. ISBN 2-86584-002-6
• Friedman, Thomas (1990, British edition). From Beirut to Jerusalem. HarperCollins Publishers. ISBN 0-00-653070-2 (pp. 76–105)
• Sallam, Qasim (1980). Al-Baath wal Watan Al-Arabi [Arabic, with French translation] ("The Baath and the Arab Homeland"). Paris: EMA. ISBN 2-86584-003-4
• Seale, Patrick (1988). Asad: The Struggle for the Middle East. University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-06976-5

References

1. ^ http://www.danielpipes.org/174/palestine-for-the-syrians
2. ^ http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/64972/fouad-ajami/the-ways-of-syria?page=2
3. ^ Transcript of Al assad

External links

• President Hafez Al-Assad CV
• President Hafez Al-Assad Speeches & Interviews
• President Hafez Al-Assad Pictures

Preceded by Nureddin al-Atassi	Prime Minister of Syria 1970–1971	Succeeded by Abdul Rahman Khleifawi
Preceded by Ahmad al-Khatib (Head of State)	President of Syria 1971–2000	Succeeded by Abdul Halim Khaddam (acting)

v • d • e Heads of state of Syria since 1922 al-Khalidi • Pierre-Alype* • Shariyari • al-Hasani • al-Abid • H. al-Atassi • al-Khatib • al-Azm* • al-Hasani • al-Ulshi* • al-Ayyubi • al-Quwatli • al-Za'im • H. al-Atassi • Selu† • Shishakli† • H. al-Atassi • al-Quwatli • Abdel Nasser • al-Kuzbari* • an-Nuss* • al-Kudsi • L. al-Atassi† • al-Hafiz† • N. al-Atassi • al-Khatib • H. al-Assad • Khaddam* • B. al-Assad *denotes acting     †military ruler

v • d • e Prime Ministers of Syria since 1920 Kingdom of Syria (1920) al-Rikabi • H. al-Atassi* • al-Durubi • al-Ulshi French Mandate of Syria (1920-1946) post established 1932 • H. al-Azm • al-Hasani • A. al-Ayyubi • Mardam Bey • al-Haffar • al-Bukhari • post vacant, 1939-41 • K. al-Azm • al-Hakim • al-Barazi • al-Ulshi • al-Jabiri • al-Khoury • al-Jabiri Syrian Republic (1946-1958) al-Jabiri • K. al-Azm* • Mardam Bey • K. al-Azm • al-Za'im • al-Barazi • H. al-Atassi • al-Kudsi • K. al-Azm • al-Kudsi • K. al-Azm • al-Hakim • al-Khatib • al-Dawalibi • Selu • Shishakli • al-Assali • al-Ghazzi • al-Khoury • al-Assali • al-Ghazzi • al-Assali United Arab Republic (1958-1961) Kuhala • Sarraj Syrian Arab Republic (1961-) al-Kuzbari • al-Nuss • al-Dawalibi • al-Azma • K. al-Azm • al-Bitar • al-Hafiz • al-Bitar • al-Hafiz • Zuaiyin • al-Bitar • Zuaiyin • N. al-Atassi • al-Assad • Kleifawi • M. al-Ayyubi • Kleifawi • al-Halabi • al-Kasm • Zuabi • Mero • al-Otari * acting

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