Background on al-Assad of Syria
An eye doctor runs Syria. How did he inherit that place and who is helping him? Iran? The Brotherhood? What should the US do?
The al-Assad family had ruled since 1970, when Defense Minister Hafez al-Assad took over in a bloodless coup — ironically, almost exactly one year after Qadhafi took over in Libya. Assad aligned Syria with the Soviet Union and took arms, advisers, and training from the communists.
Although three-quarters of the Syrian population were Sunni Muslim, the Assads were Alawites, members of a small Islamic sect that made up just 11 percent of the population. The Alawites were aligned with the Shiites and had been recognized by the Iranian (Shiite) ayatollahs and by Lebanese Shiite leaders.
The confidence of Hafez al-Assad didn’t extend far beyond his fellow Alawites, whom he had placed throughout his military in positions of strategic importance. It was in this fashion that he had coup-proofed his country. The Alawites were in charge of everything important— intelligence services, military units, government agencies. This didn’t sit well with the Sunnis, but it suited Assad just fine.
His other methods of ensuring he stayed in charge were more brutal. Assad was a man who destroyed, through any means necessary, anyone who spoke out against his government. He’d crushed many who had tried to usurp his power, including the Muslim Brotherhood—themselves dangerous opponents who exported terrorism across the region.
Their founder was a cleric named Hassan al-Banna, who believed like all fundamentalists that Islam was destined to dominate the world and impose its law on all nations. It was the Brotherhood who assassinated Egyptian prime minister Mahmoud Nokrashy in 1948, tried to assassinate Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1954, and succeeded in assassinating Egyptian president Anwar Sadat in 1981. The Brotherhood saw these men as secular Muslims not following the true faith and catering to the infidels, in Egypt’s case the Soviets. To them, Assad was just as unsavory. He was, after all, an Alawite.
Now the Brotherhood, whose leaders took power in Egypt in the summer of 2012, were certainly part of the mix in Libya and were attempting to elevate its position, downplay its terrorist origins and radical fundamentalism, and rebrand its leaders as diplomats and statesmen worthy of governing nations and acting on the world stage. Just like the terrorist Yasser Arafat did in the Palestine Liberation Organization.
In Syria back in 2001, the Brotherhood was experiencing a resurgence of strength, despite the country’s peaceful change of leadership from the old man to the son. In the summer of 2000, the old man Hafez al-Assad died of a heart attack. His successor and son, Bashar al- Assad — an equally determined opponent of the Brotherhood — took over just seven days later.
A reserved but erratic man, the new dictator had been trained as a medical doctor in Damascus and had gone on to specialize in ophthalmology at the Western eye Hospital in London. Now more than ten years later, despite his expertise in the field of vision, there was much he overlooked, particularly the looming wave of reform that was sweeping the region and destabilizing his own country.
Gradually, the assaults against the regime’s enemies have grown more and more bloody and repugnant. But again, for Americans, it is a question of who the regime’s opponents are — potential allies or Islamic terrorists? We must find out the character and intentions of those who would assume power if Assad is to be ousted.
Although three-quarters of the Syrian population were Sunni Muslim, the Assads were Alawites, members of a small Islamic sect that made up just 11 percent of the population. The Alawites were aligned with the Shiites and had been recognized by the Iranian (Shiite) ayatollahs and by Lebanese Shiite leaders.
The confidence of Hafez al-Assad didn’t extend far beyond his fellow Alawites, whom he had placed throughout his military in positions of strategic importance. It was in this fashion that he had coup-proofed his country. The Alawites were in charge of everything important— intelligence services, military units, government agencies. This didn’t sit well with the Sunnis, but it suited Assad just fine.
His other methods of ensuring he stayed in charge were more brutal. Assad was a man who destroyed, through any means necessary, anyone who spoke out against his government. He’d crushed many who had tried to usurp his power, including the Muslim Brotherhood—themselves dangerous opponents who exported terrorism across the region.
Their founder was a cleric named Hassan al-Banna, who believed like all fundamentalists that Islam was destined to dominate the world and impose its law on all nations. It was the Brotherhood who assassinated Egyptian prime minister Mahmoud Nokrashy in 1948, tried to assassinate Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1954, and succeeded in assassinating Egyptian president Anwar Sadat in 1981. The Brotherhood saw these men as secular Muslims not following the true faith and catering to the infidels, in Egypt’s case the Soviets. To them, Assad was just as unsavory. He was, after all, an Alawite.
Now the Brotherhood, whose leaders took power in Egypt in the summer of 2012, were certainly part of the mix in Libya and were attempting to elevate its position, downplay its terrorist origins and radical fundamentalism, and rebrand its leaders as diplomats and statesmen worthy of governing nations and acting on the world stage. Just like the terrorist Yasser Arafat did in the Palestine Liberation Organization.
In Syria back in 2001, the Brotherhood was experiencing a resurgence of strength, despite the country’s peaceful change of leadership from the old man to the son. In the summer of 2000, the old man Hafez al-Assad died of a heart attack. His successor and son, Bashar al- Assad — an equally determined opponent of the Brotherhood — took over just seven days later.
A reserved but erratic man, the new dictator had been trained as a medical doctor in Damascus and had gone on to specialize in ophthalmology at the Western eye Hospital in London. Now more than ten years later, despite his expertise in the field of vision, there was much he overlooked, particularly the looming wave of reform that was sweeping the region and destabilizing his own country.
Gradually, the assaults against the regime’s enemies have grown more and more bloody and repugnant. But again, for Americans, it is a question of who the regime’s opponents are — potential allies or Islamic terrorists? We must find out the character and intentions of those who would assume power if Assad is to be ousted.