The Assad Presidency: Should Longevity Trump Acceptability?

Abstract

A number of factors favoured the ascendency to ’presidency in 1972 of Hafez al-Assad: Syria’s revolving door governments since independence in 1948; the Arab defeat in 1968 against Israel; the burning Arab desire for unity and solidarity; and the ideology of Arab Ba’ath Socialism whose secular ethos favoured Assad’s minority community, the Alawi. Each of these played a major part in his acquisition, retention and consolidation of power. Hafez Assad positioned Syria as a hard-line state calling it the ‘bleeding heart of the Arab world’. By the time of his death in 2000, the Assad family was in absolute control of Syria’s future. Bashar al-Assad, his son and successor, promised a more open economy and polity to the Syrian people. Yet this was short-lived due to domestic imperatives of consolidating power and external constraints imposed by developments in Iraq. The chapter analyses the rise and consolidation by the Assad family of the country’s governance to highlight factors that led to increasing polarization of public opinion. At a time when Bashar al-Assad is in control of most of his country, he remains a potent force in any negotiations for a post-civil war political dispensation.