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Early life and education: 1930–1950 Family Main article: Al-Assad family Hafez was born on 6 October 1930 in Qardaha to an Alawite family[1] of the Kalbiyya tribe.[2][3] His parents were Na'sa and Ali Sulayman.[4] Hafez was Ali's ninth son, and the fourth from his second marriage.[4] Sulayman married twice, had eleven children[5] and was known for his strength and shooting abilities; locals nicknamed him Wahhish (wild beast).[6] By the 1920s he was respected locally, and like many others he initially opposed French occupation.[7] Nevertheless, Ali Sulayman later cooperated with the French administration and was appointed to an official post.[8] In 1936, he was one of 80 Alawite notables who signed a letter addressed to the French Prime Minister saying that "[the] Alawi people rejected attachment to Syria and wished to stay under French protection."[8] For his accomplishments, he was called al-Assad (a lion) by local residents[7] and made the nickname his surname in 1927.[9] Education and early political career Alawites initially opposed a united Syrian state (since they thought their status as a religious minority would endanger them),[10] and Hafez's father shared this belief.[10] As the French left Syria, many Syrians mistrusted Alawites because of their alignment with France.[10] Hafez left his Alawite village, beginning his education at age nine in Sunni-dominated[1] Latakia.[9] He was the first in his family to attend high school,[11] but in Latakia Assad faced Sunni anti-Alawite bias.[10] He was an excellent student, winning several prizes at about age 14.[10] Assad lived in a poor, predominantly Alawite part of Latakia;[12] to fit in, he approached political parties that welcomed Alawites.[12] These parties (which also espoused secularism) were the Syrian Communist Party, the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP) and the Arab Ba'ath Party; Assad joined the latter in 1946,[12] and some of his friends belonged to the SSNP.[13] The Ba'ath (Renaissance) Party espoused a pan-Arabist, socialist ideology.[12] Assad was an asset to the party, organizing Ba'ath student cells and carrying the party's message to the poor sections of Latakia and Alawite villages.[9] He was opposed by the Muslim Brotherhood, which was allied with wealthy and conservative Muslim families.[9] His high school accommodated students from rich and poor families,[9] and Assad was joined by poor, anti-establishment Sunni Muslim youth from the Ba'ath Party in confrontations with students from wealthy Brotherhood families.[9] He made many Sunni friends, some of whom later became his political allies.[9] While still a teenager, Assad became increasingly prominent in the party[14] as an organizer and recruiter, head of his school's student-affairs committee from 1949 to 1951 and president of the Union of Syrian Students.[9] During his political activism in school, he met many men who would serve him when he was president.[14] Air Force career: 1950–1958 Group of soldiers next to a plane Hafez al-Assad (above) standing on the wing of a Fiat G.46-4B with fellow cadets at the Syrian AF Academy outside Aleppo, 1951–52 After graduating from high school Assad wanted to be a medical doctor, but his father could not pay for his study at the Jesuit University of St. Joseph in Beirut.[9] Instead, in 1950 he decided to join the Syrian Armed Forces.[14] Assad entered the military academy in Homs, which offered free food, lodging and a stipend.[9] He wanted to fly, and entered the flying school in Aleppo in 1950.[15][16] Assad graduated in 1955, after which he was commissioned a lieutenant in the Syrian Air Force.[17] Upon graduation from flying school he won a best-aviator trophy,[15][16] and shortly afterwards was assigned to the Mezze air base near Damascus.[18] In his early 20s he married Aniseh Makhlouf, a distant relative of a powerful family.[19] In 1954, the military split in a revolt against President Adib Shishakli.[20] Hashim al-Atassi, head of the National Bloc and briefly president after Sami al-Hinnawi's coup, returned as president and Syria was again under civilian rule.[20] After 1955, Atassi's hold on the country was increasingly shaky.[20] As a result of the 1955 election Atassi was replaced by Shukri al-Quwatli, who was president before Syria's independence from France.[20] The Ba'ath Party grew closer to the Communist Party not because of shared ideology, but a shared opposition to the West.[20] At the academy Assad met Mustafa Tlass, his future minister of defense.[21] In 1955, Assad was sent to Egypt for a further six months of training.[22] When Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal in 1956, Syria feared retaliation from the United Kingdom, and Assad flew in an air-defense mission.[23] He was among the Syrian pilots who flew to Cairo to show Syria's commitment to Egypt.[22] After finishing a course in Egypt the following year, Assad returned to a small air base near Damascus.[22] During the Suez Crisis, he also flew a reconnaissance mission over northern and eastern Syria.[22] In 1957, as squadron commander, Assad was sent to the Soviet Union for training in flying MiG-17s.[15] He spent ten months in the Soviet Union, during which he fathered a daughter (who died as an infant while he was abroad) with his wife.[19] In 1958 Syria and Egypt formed the United Arab Republic (UAR), separating themselves from Iraq, Iran, Pakistan and Turkey (who were aligned with the United Kingdom).[24] This pact led to the rejection of Communist influence in favor of Egyptian control over Syria.[24] All Syrian political parties (including the Ba'ath Party) were dissolved, and senior officers—especially those who supported the Communists—were dismissed from the Syrian armed forces.[24] Assad, however, remained in the army and rose quickly through the ranks.[24] After reaching the rank of captain he was transferred to Egypt, continuing his military education with future president of Egypt Hosni Mubarak.[15] Runup to 1963 coup: 1958–1963 Main article: 1963 Syrian coup d'état Assad was not content with a professional military career, regarding it as a gateway to politics.[25] After the creation of the UAR, Ba'ath Party leader Michel Aflaq was forced by Nasser to dissolve the party.[25] During the UAR's existence, the Ba'ath Party experienced a crisis[26] for which several of its members—mostly young—blamed Aflaq.[27] To resurrect the Syrian Regional Branch of the party, Muhammad Umran, Salah Jadid, Assad and others established the Military Committee.[27] In 1957–58 Assad rose to a dominant position in the Military Committee, which mitigated his transfer to Egypt.[15] After Syria left the UAR in September 1961, Assad and other Ba'athist officers were removed from the military by the new government in Damascus, and he was given a minor clerical position at the Ministry of Transport.[15] Assad played a minor role in the failed 1962 military coup, for which he was jailed in Lebanon and later repatriated.[28] That year, Aflaq convened the 5th National Congress of the Ba'ath Party (where he was reelected as the Secretary General of the National Command) and ordered the re-establishment of the party's Syrian Regional Branch.[29] At the Congress, the Military Committee (through Umran) established contacts with Aflaq and the civilian leadership.[29] The committee requested permission to seize power by force, and Aflaq agreed to the conspiracy.[29] After the success of the Iraqi coup d'état led by the Ba'ath Party's Iraqi Regional Branch, the Military Committee hastily convened to launch a Ba'athist military coup in March 1963 against President Nazim al-Kudsi[30] (which Assad helped plan).[28][31] The coup was scheduled for 7 March, but he announced a postponement (until the next day) to the other units.[32] During the coup Assad led a small group to capture the Dumayr air base, 40 kilometres (25 mi) northeast of Damascus.[33] His group was the only one that encountered resistance.[33] Some planes at the base were ordered to bomb the conspirators, and because of this Assad hurried to reach the base before dawn.[33] Because the 70th Armored Brigade's surrender took longer than anticipated, however, he arrived in broad daylight.[33] When Assad threatened the base commander with shelling, the commander negotiated a surrender;[33] Assad later claimed that the base could have withstood his forces.[33] Early Ba'ath Party rule: 1963–1970 Aflaqite leadership: 1963–1966 Military work Not long after Assad's election to the Regional Command, the Military Committee ordered him to strengthen the committee's position in the military establishment.[34] Assad may have received the most important job of all, since his primary goal was to end factionalism in the Syrian military and make it a Ba'ath monopoly;[34] as he said, he had to create an "ideological army".[34] To help with this task Assad recruited Zaki al-Arsuzi, who indirectly (through Wahib al-Ghanim) inspired him to join the Ba'ath Party when he was young.[34] Arsuzi accompanied Assad on tours of military camps, where Arsuzi lectured the soldiers on Ba'athist thought.[34] In gratitude for his work, Assad gave Arsuzi a government pension.[34] Assad continued his Ba'athification of the military by appointing loyal officers to key positions and ensuring that the "political education of the troops was not neglected".[35] He demonstrated his skill as a patient planner during this period.[35] As Patrick Seale wrote, Assad's mastery of detail "suggested the mind of an intelligence officer".[35] Assad was promoted to major and then to lieutenant colonel, and by the end of 1963 was in charge of the Syrian Air Force.[31] By the end of 1964 he was named commander of the Air Force, with the rank of major general.[31] Assad gave privileges to Air Force officers, appointed his confidants to senior and sensitive positions and established an efficient intelligence network.[36] Air Force Intelligence, under the command of Muhammad al-Khuli, became independent of Syria's other intelligence organizations and received assignments beyond Air Force jurisdiction.[36] Assad prepared himself for an active role in the power struggles that lay ahead.[36] Power struggle and 1966 coup Main article: 1966 Syrian coup d'état In the aftermath of the 1963 coup, at the First Regional Congress (held 5 September 1963) Assad was elected to the Syrian Regional Command (the highest decision-making body in the Syrian Regional Branch).[37] While not a leadership role, it was Assad's first appearance in national politics;[37] in retrospect, he said he positioned himself "on the left" in the Regional Command.[37] Khalid al-Falhum, a Palestinian who would later work for the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), met Assad in 1963; he noted that Assad was a strong leftist "but was clearly not a communist", committed instead to Arab nationalism.[38] During the 1964 Hama riot, Assad voted to suppress the uprising violently if needed.[39] The decision to suppress the Hama riot led to a schism in the Military Committee between Umran and Jadid.[40] Umran opposed force, instead wanting the Ba'ath Party to create a coalition with other pan-Arab forces.[40] Jadid desired a strong one-party state, similar to those in the socialist countries of Europe.[40] Assad, as junior partner, kept quiet at first but eventually allied himself with Jadid.[40] Why Assad chose to side with him has been widely discussed; he probably shared Jadid's radical ideological outlook.[41] Having lost his footing on the Military Committee, Umran aligned himself with Aflaq and the National Command; he told them that the Military Committee was planning to seize power in the party by ousting them.[41] Because of Umran's defection, Rifaat al-Assad (Assad's brother) succeeded Umran as commander of a secret military force tasked with protecting Military Committee loyalists.[41] In its bid to seize power the Military Committee allied themselves with the regionalists, a group of cells in the Syrian Regional Branch that refused to disband in 1958 when ordered to do so.[42] Although Aflaq considered these cells traitors, Assad called them the "true cells of the party"; this again highlighted differences between the Military Committee and the National Command headed by Aflaq.[42] At the Eighth National Congress in 1965 Assad was elected to the National Command, the party's highest decision-making body.[43] From his position as part of the National Command, Assad informed Jadid on its activities.[44] After the congress, the National Command dissolved the Syrian Regional Command; Aflaq proposed Salah al-Din al-Bitar as prime minister, but Assad and Ibrahim Makhus opposed Bitar's nomination.[45] According to Seale, Assad abhorred Aflaq; he considered him an autocrat and a rightist, accusing him of "ditching" the party by ordering the dissolution of the Syrian Regional Branch in 1958.[25] Assad, who also disliked Aflaq's supporters, nevertheless opposed a show of force against the Aflaqites.[46] In response to the imminent coup Assad, Naji Jamil, Husayn Mulhim and Yusuf Sayigh left for London.[47] In the 1966 Syrian coup d'état, the Military Committee overthrew the National Command.[36] The coup led to a permanent schism in the Ba'ath movement, the advent of neo-Ba'athism and the establishment of two centers of the international Ba'athist movement: one Iraqi- and the other Syrian-dominated.[48] Jadid as strongman: 1966–70 Beginning After the coup, Assad was appointed Minister of Defense.[49] This was his first cabinet post, and through his position he would be thrust into the forefront of the Syrian–Israeli conflict.[49] His government was radically socialist, and sought to remake society from top to bottom.[49] Although Assad was a radical, he opposed the headlong rush for change.[49] Despite his title, he had little power in the government and took more orders than he issued.[49] Jadid was undisputed leader at the time, opting to remain in the office of Assistant Regional Secretary of the Syrian Regional Command instead of taking executive office (which had historically been held by Sunnis).[50] Nureddin al-Atassi was given three of the four top executive positions in the country: President, Secretary-General of the National Command and Regional Secretary of the Syrian Regional Command.[50] The post of prime minister was given to Yusuf Zu'ayyin.[50] Jadid (who was establishing his authority) focused on civilian issues and gave Assad de facto control of the Syrian military, considering him no threat.[50] During the failed coup d'état of late 1966, Salim Hatum tried to overthrow Jadid's government.[51] Hatum (who felt snubbed when he was not appointed to the Regional Command after the February 1966 coup d'état) sought revenge and the return to power of Hammud al-Shufi, the first Regional Secretary of the Regional Command after the Syrian Regional Branch's re-establishment in 1963.[51] When Jadid, Atassi and Regional Command member Jamil Shayya visited Suwayda, forces loyal to Hatum surrounded the city and captured them.[52] In a twist of fate, the city's Druze elders forbade the murder of their guests and demanded that Hatum wait.[52] Jadid and the others were placed under house arrest, with Hatum planning to kill them at his first opportunity.[52] When word of the mutiny spread to the Ministry of Defense, Assad ordered the 70th Armored Brigade to the city.[52] By this time Hatum, a Druze, knew that Assad would order the bombardment of Suwayda (a Druze-dominated city) if Hatum did not accede to his demands.[52] Hatum and his supporters fled to Jordan, where they were given asylum.[53] How Assad learned about the conspiracy is unknown, but Mustafa al-Hajj Ali (head of Military Intelligence) may have telephoned the Ministry of Defense.[53] Due to his prompt action, Assad earned Jadid's gratitude.[53] In the aftermath of the attempted coup Assad and Jadid purged the party's military organization, removing 89 officers; Assad removed an estimated 400 officers, Syria's largest military purge to date.[53] The purges since 1963, when the Ba'ath Party took power, left the military weak;[53] when the Six-Day War broke out, Syria had no chance of victory.[53] Seizing power The Arab defeat in the Six-Day War, in which Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria, provoked a furious quarrel among Syria's leadership.[54] The civilian leadership blamed military incompetence, and the military responded by criticizing the civilian leadership (led by Jadid).[54] Several high-ranking party members demanded Assad's resignation, and an attempt was made to vote him out of the Regional Command, the party's highest decision-making body.[54] The motion was defeated by one vote, with Abd al-Karim al-Jundi (who the anti-Assad members hoped would succeed Assad as defense minister) voting, as Patrick Seale put it, "in a comradely gesture" to retain him.[54] During the end of the war, the party leadership freed Aflaqites Umran, Amin al-Hafiz and Mansur al-Atrash from prison.[54] Shortly after his release, Hafiz was approached by dissident Syrian military officers to oust the government; he refused, believing that a coup at that time would have helped Israel, but not Syria.[54] The war was a turning point for Assad (and Ba'athist Syria in general),[55] and his attempted ouster began a power struggle with Jadid for control of the country.[55] Until then Assad had not shown ambition for high office, arousing little suspicion in others.[55] From the 1963 Syrian coup d'état to the Six-Day War in 1967, Assad did not play a leading role in politics and was usually overshadowed by his contemporaries.[56] As Patrick Seale wrote, he was "apparently content to be a solid member of the team without the aspiration to become number one".[56] Although Jadid was slow to see Assad's threat, shortly after the war Assad began developing a network in the military and promoted friends and close relatives to high positions.[56] Differences with Jadid Assad believed that Syria's defeat in the Six-Day War was Jadid's fault, and the accusations against himself were unjust.[56] By this time Jadid had total control of the Regional Command, whose members supported his policies.[56] Assad and Jadid began to differ on policy;[56] Assad believed that Jadid's policy of a people's war (an armed-guerrilla strategy) and class struggle had failed Syria, undermining its position.[56] Although Jadid continued to champion the concept of a people's war even after the Six-Day War, Assad opposed it because the Palestinian guerrilla fighters had been given too much autonomy; they raided Israel continuously, which had sparked the war.[56] Jadid had broken diplomatic relations with countries he deemed reactionary, such as Saudi Arabia and Jordan.[56] Because of this, Syria did not receive aid from other Arab countries; Egypt and Jordan, who participated in the war, received £135 million per year for an undisclosed period.[56] While Jadid and his supporters prioritized socialism and the "internal revolution", Assad wanted the leadership to focus on foreign policy and the containment of Israel.[57] Several issues concerned the Ba'ath Party: how the government could best use Syria's limited resources, the relationship between the party and the people, party organization and whether the class struggle should end.[57] These subjects were discussed heatedly in Ba'ath Party conclaves, and when they reached the Fourth Regional Congress the two sides were irreconcilable.[57] Assad wanted to "democratize" the party by making it easier for people to join.[58] Jadid was wary of too large a membership, believing that the majority of those who joined were opportunists.[57] Assad, in an interview with Patrick Seale in the 1980s, stated that such a policy would make Party members believe they were a privileged class.[58] Another problem, Assad believed, was the lack of local-government institutions.[58] Under Jadid, there was no governmental level below the Council of Ministers (the Syrian government).[58] When the Ba'athist Iraqi Regional Branch (which continued to support the Aflaqite leadership) took control of Iraq in the 17 July Revolution, Assad was one of the few high-level politicians wishing to reconcile with them;[58] he called for the establishment of an "Eastern Front" with Iraq against Israel in 1968.[59] Jadid's foreign policy towards the Soviet Union was also criticized, with Assad believing it had failed.[59] In many ways the relationship between the countries was poor, with the Soviets refusing to acknowledge Jadid's scientific socialism and Soviet newspapers calling him a "hothead".[60] Assad, on the contrary, called for greater pragmatism in decision-making.[60] "Duality of power" At a meeting someone raised the case of X. Should he not be brought back? Asad gave the questioner a hard look but said nothing. A little later the subject came up again and this time Asad said: I've heard something disagreeable about this officer. When he was on a course in England in 1954, his brother wrote asking for help for their sick mother. X took a £5 note out of his pocket, held it up and said he wouldn't part with it to save her life. Anyone who can't be loyal to his mother is not going to be loyal to the air force. —General Fu'ad Kallas on the importance in which Assad laid on personal loyalty[61] The conflict between Assad and Jadid became the talk of the army and the party, with a "duality of power" noted between them.[60] Shortly after the failed attempt to expel Assad from the Regional Command, he began to consolidate his position in the military establishment[60]—for example, by replacing Chief of Staff Ahmad al-Suwaydani with his friend Mustafa Tlass.[60] Although Suwaydani's relationship with Jadid had deteriorated, he was removed because of his complaints about "Alawi influence in the army".[60] Tlass was later appointed Assad's Deputy Minister of Defense (his second-in-command).[61] Others removed from their positions were Ahmad al-Mir (a founder and former member of the Military Committee, and former commander of the Golan Front) and Izzat Jadid (a close supporter of Jadid and commander of the 70th Armoured Brigade).[61] By the Fourth Regional Congress and Tenth National Congress in September and October 1968, Assad had extended his grip on the army, and Jadid still controlled the party.[61] At both congresses, Assad was outvoted on most issues, and his arguments were firmly rejected.[61] While he failed in most of his attempts, he had enough support to remove two socialist theoreticians (Prime Minister Yusuf Zu'ayyin and Minister of Foreign Affairs Ibrahim Makhus) from the Regional Command.[61] However, the military's involvement in party politics was unpopular with the rank and file; as the gulf between Assad and Jadid widened, the civilian and military party bodies were forbidden to contact each other.[62] Despite this, Assad was winning the race to accumulate power.[62] As Munif al-Razzaz (ousted in the 1966 Syrian coup d'état) noted, "Jadid's fatal mistake was to attempt to govern the army through the party".[62] Two men shaking hands, with mustachioed man in background Assad (center) and Nureddin al-Atassi (left) meeting with Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, 1969 While Assad had taken control of the armed forces through his position as Minister of Defense, Jadid still controlled the security and intelligence sectors through Abd al-Karim al-Jundi (head of the National Security Bureau).[62] Jundi—a paranoid, cruel man—was feared throughout Syria.[62] In February 1969, the Assad-Jadid conflict erupted in violent clashes through their respective proteges: Rifaat al-Assad (Assad's brother and a high-ranking military commander) and Jundi.[63] The reason for the violence was Rifaat al-Assad's suspicion that Jundi was planning an attempt on Assad's life.[63] The suspected assassin was interrogated and confessed under torture.[63] Acting on this information, Rifaat al-Assad argued that unless Jundi was removed from his post he and his brother were in danger.[63] From 25–28 February 1969, the Assad brothers initiated "something just short of a coup".[63] Under Assad's authority, tanks were moved into Damascus and the staffs of al-Ba'ath and al-Thawra (two party newspapers) and radio stations in Damascus and Aleppo were replaced with Assad loyalists.[63] Latakia and Tartus, two Alawite-dominated cities, saw "fierce scuffles" ending with the overthrow of Jadid's supporters from local posts.[63] Shortly afterwards, a wave of arrests of Jundi loyalists began.[63] On 2 March, after a telephone argument with head of military intelligence Ali Dhadha, Jundi committed suicide.[63] When Zu'ayyin heard the news he wept, saying "we are all orphaned now" (referring to his and Jadid's loss of their protector).[64] Despite the fact that Assad drove Jundi to suicide, he is said to have also wept when he heard the news.[63] Assad was now in control, but he hesitated to push his advantage.[63] Jadid continued to rule Syria, and the Regional Command was unchanged.[64] However, Assad influenced Jadid to moderate his policies.[64] Class struggle was muted, criticism of reactionary tendencies of other Arab states ceased, some political prisoners were freed, a coalition government was formed (with the Ba'ath Party in control) and the Eastern Front—espoused by Assad—was formed with Iraq and Jordan.[65] Jadid's isolationist policies were curtailed, and Syria reestablished diplomatic relations with many of its foes.[65] Around this time, Gamal Abdel Nasser's Egypt, Houari Boumediene's Algeria and Ba'athist Iraq began sending emissaries to reconcile Assad and Jadid.[65] 1970 coup d'état Assad began planning to seize power shortly after the failed Syrian military intervention in the Jordanian Black September crisis, a power struggle between the PLO and the Hashemite monarchy.[66] While Assad had been in de facto command of Syrian politics since 1969, Jadid and his supporters still held the trappings of power.[66] After attending Nasser's funeral, Assad returned to Syria for the Emergency National Congress (held on 30 October).[66] At the congress Assad was condemned by Jadid and his supporters, the majority of the party's delegates.[66] However, before attending the congress Assad ordered his loyal troops to surround the building housing the meeting.[66] Criticism of Assad's political position continued in a defeatist tone, with the majority of delegates believing that they had lost the battle.[66] Assad and Tlass were stripped of their government posts at the congress; these acts had little practical significance.[66] When the National Congress ended on 12 November 1970, Assad ordered loyalists to arrest leading members of Jadid's government.[67] Although many mid-level officials were offered posts in Syrian embassies abroad, Jadid refused: "If I ever take power, you will be dragged through the streets until you die."[67] Assad imprisoned him in Mezze prison until his death.[67] The coup was calm and bloodless; the only evidence of change to the outside world was the disappearance of newspapers, radio and television stations.[67] A Temporary Regional Command was soon established, and on 16 November the new government published its first decree.[67] Presidency: 1970–2000 Main article: Presidency of Hafez al-Assad Domestic events and policies Consolidating power Main article: Corrective Movement (Syria) Mustachioed man in military uniform Assad in November 1970, shortly after seizing power According to Patrick Seale, Assad's rule "began with an immediate and considerable advantage: the government he displaced was so detested that any alternative came as a relief".[68] He first tried to establish national unity, which he felt had been lost under the leadership of Aflaq and Jadid.[69] Assad differed from his predecessor at the outset, visiting local villages and hearing citizen complaints.[69] The Syrian people felt that Assad's rise to power would lead to change;[70] one of his first acts as ruler was to visit Sultan Pasha al-Atrash, father of the Aflaqite Ba'athist Mansur al-Atrash, to honor his efforts during the Great Arab Revolution.[69] He made overtures to the Writers' Union, rehabilitating those who had been forced underground, jailed or sent into exile for representing what radical Ba'athists called the reactionary classes:[69] "I am determined that you shall no longer feel strangers in your own country."[69] Although Assad did not democratize the country, he eased the government's repressive policies.[71] He cut prices for basic foodstuffs 15 percent, which won him support from ordinary citizens.[71] Jadid's security services were purged, some military criminal investigative powers were transferred to the police, and the confiscation of goods under Jadid was reversed.[71] Restrictions on travel to and trade with Lebanon were eased, and Assad encouraged growth in the private sector.[71] While Assad supported most of Jadid's policies, after he came to power he proved more pragmatic.[71] Most of Jadid's supporters faced a choice: continue working for the Ba'ath government under Assad, or face repression.[71] Assad made it clear from the beginning "that there would be no second chances".[71] However, later in 1970 he recruited support from the Ba'athist old guard who had supported Aflaq's leadership during the 1963–66 power struggle.[71] An estimated 2,000 former Ba'athists rejoined the party after hearing Assad's appeal, among them party ideologist Georges Saddiqni and Shakir al-Fahham, a secretary of the founding, 1st National Congress of the Ba'ath Party in 1947.[71] Assad ensured that they would not defect to the pro-Aflaqite Ba'ath Party in Iraq with the Treason Trials in 1971, in which he prosecuted Aflaq, Hafiz and nearly 100 followers (most in absentia).[72] The few who were convicted were not imprisoned long, and the trials were primarily symbolic.[73] At the 11th National Congress Assad asured party members that his leadership was a radical change from that of Jadid, and he would implement a "corrective movement" to return Syria to the true "nationalist socialist line".[74] Unlike Jadid, Assad emphasized "the advancement of which all resources and manpower [would be] mobilised [was to be] the liberation of the occupied territories".[74] This would mark a major break with his predecessors and would, according to Raymond Hinnebusch, dictate "major alterations in the course of the Ba'thist state".[74] Institutionalization Large group of men sitting in rows Assad's first inauguration as President in the People's Council, March 1971. L–R: Assad, Abdullah al-Ahmar, Prime Minister Abdul Rahman Khleifawi, Assistant Regional Secretary Mohamad Jaber Bajbouj, Foreign Minister Abdul Halim Khaddam and People's Council Speaker Fihmi al-Yusufi. In the third civilian row are Defense Minister Mustafa Tlass (MP in the 1971 Parliament) and Air Force Commander Naji Jamil. Behind Tlass is Rifaat al-Assad, Assad's younger brother. On the far right in the fourth row is future vice president Zuhair Masharqa, and behind Abdullah al-Ahmar is Deputy Prime Minister Mohammad Haidar. Assad turned the presidency, which had been known simply as "head of state" under Jadid, into a position of power during his rule.[75] In many ways, the presidential authority replaced the Ba'ath Party's failed experiment with organized, military Leninism;[75] Syria became a hybrid of Leninism and Gaullist constitutionalism.[75] According to Raymond Hinnebusch, "as the president became the main source of initiative in the government, his personality, values, strengths and weaknesses became decisive for its direction and stability. Arguably Assad's leadership gave the government an enhanced combination of consistency and flexibility which it hitherto lacked."[75] Assad institutionalized a system where he had the final say, which weakened the powers of the collegial institutions of the state and party.[76] As fidelity to the leader replaced ideological conviction later in his presidency, corruption became widespread.[76] The state-sponsored cult of personality became pervasive; as Assad's authority strengthened at his colleagues' expense, he became the sole symbol of the government.[77][76] Because Assad wanted to become an Arab leader, he considered himself a successor to Nasser since he rose to power in November 1970 (a few weeks after Nasser's death).[78] He modeled his presidential system on Nasser's, hailed Nasser for his pan-Arabic leadership and publicly displayed photographs of Nasser with posters of himself.[77] Pictures of Assad—often engaged in heroic activities—were placed in public places.[78] He named a number of places and institutions after himself and family members.[78] In schools, children were taught songs praising Assad.[78] Teachers began each lesson with the song "Our Eternal Leader, Hafez al-Assad",[78] and he was sometimes portrayed with seemingly divine attributes.[78] Sculptures and portraits depicted him with the prophet Mohammad, and after his mother's death the government produced portraits of her with a halo.[78] Syrian officials were compelled to call Assad "the sanctified one" ("al-Muqaddas").[78] This strategy was also pursued by his son, Bashar al-Assad.[79] While Assad did not rule alone, he increasingly had the last word;[80] those with whom he worked eventually became lieutenants, rather than colleagues.[80] None of the political elite would question a decision of his, since those who did had been dismissed.[80] General Naji Jamil is an example, being dismissed after he disagreed with Assad's handling of the Islamic uprising.[80] The two highest decision-making bodies were the Regional Command and the National Command, both part of the Ba'ath Party.[81] Joint sessions of these bodies resembled politburos in socialist states which espoused communism.[81] Assad headed the National Command and the Regional Command as Secretary General and Regional Secretary, respectively.[81] The Regional Command was the highest decision-making body in Syria, appointing the president and (through him) the cabinet.[81] As presidential authority strengthened, the power of the Regional Command and its members evaporated.[82] The Regional and National Commands were (in theory) responsible to the Regional Congress and the National Congress—with the National Congress the de jure superior body—but the Regional Congress had de facto authority.[83] The National Congress, which included delegates from Ba'athist Regional Branches in other countries, has been compared to the Comintern.[84] It functioned as a session of the Regional Congress focusing on Syria's foreign policy and party ideology.[84] The Regional Congress had limited accountability until the 1985 Eighth Regional Congress, the last under Assad.[84] In 1985, responsibility for leadership accountability was transferred from the Regional Congress to the weaker National Progressive Front.[82] Sectarianism Four men in suits Assad with Sunni members of the political elite: (L–R) Ahmad al-Khatib, Assad, Abdullah al-Ahmar and Mustafa Tlass When Assad came to power, he increased Alawite dominance of the security and intelligence sectors to a near-monopoly.[76] The coercive framework was under his control, weakening the state and party. According to Hinnebusch, the Alawite officers around Assad "were pivotal because as personal kinsmen or clients of the president, they combined privileged access to him with positions in the party and control of the levers of coercion. They were, therefore, in an unrivalled position to act as political brokers and, especially in times of crisis, were uniquely placed to shape outcomes".[76] The leading figures in the Alawite-dominated security system had family connections; Rifaat al-Assad controlled the Struggle Companies, and Assad's son-in-law Adnan Makhluf was his second-in-command as Commander of the Presidential Guard.[76] Other prominent figures were Ali Haydar (special-forces head), Ibrahim al-Ali (Popular Army head), Muhammad al-Khuli (head of Assad's intelligence-coordination committee) and Military Intelligence head Ali Duba.[85] Assad controlled the military through Alawites such as Generals Shafiq Fayyad (commander of the 3rd Division), Ibrahim Safi (commander of the 1st Division) and Adnan Badr Hasan (commander of the 9th Division).[86] During the 1990s, Assad further strengthened Alawite dominance by replacing Sunni General Hikmat al-Shihabi with General Ali Aslan as chief of staff.[86] The Alawites, with their high status, appointed and promoted based on kinship and favor rather than professional respect.[86] Therefore, an Alawite elite emerged from these policies.[86] Assad's elite was non-sectarian;[86] prominent Sunni figures at the beginning of his rule were Abdul Halim Khaddam, Shihabi, Naji Jamil, Abdullah al-Ahmar and Mustafa Tlass.[86] However, none of these people had a distinct power base from that of Assad.[87] Although Sunnis held the positions of Air Force Commander from 1971 to 1994 (Jamil, Subhi Haddad and Ali Malahafji), General Intelligence head from 1970 to 2000 (Adnan Dabbagh, Ali al-Madani, Nazih Zuhayr, Fuad al-Absi and Bashir an-Najjar), Chief of Staff of the Syrian Army from 1974 to 1998 (Shihabi) and defense minister from 1972 until after Assad's death (Tlass), none had power separate from Assad or the Alawite-dominated security system.[87] When Jamil headed the Air Force, he could not issue orders without the knowledge of Khuli (the Alawite head of Air Force Intelligence).[87] After the failed Islamic uprising, Assad's reliance on his relatives intensified;[87] before that, his Sunni colleagues had some autonomy.[87] A defector from Assad's government said, "Tlass is in the army but at the same time seems as if he is not of the army; he neither binds nor loosens and has no role other than that of the tail in the beast."[88] Another example was Shihabi, who occasionally represented Assad.[88] However, he had no control in the Syrian military; Ali Aslan, First Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations during most of his tenure, was responsible for troop maneuvers.[88] Although the Sunnis were in the forefront, the Alawites had the power.[88] Hafez al-Assad (Arabic: حافظ الأسد Ḥāfiẓ al-ʾAsad, Levantine pronunciation: [ˈħaːfezˤ elˈʔasad]; 6 October 1930 – 10 June 2000) was a Syrian statesman, politician and general who was President of Syria from 1971 to 2000, Prime Minister from 1970 to 1971, Regional secretary of the Regional Command of the Syrian Regional Branch and Secretary General of the National Command of the Ba'ath Party from 1971 to 2000. He participated in the 1963 Syrian coup d'état which brought the Syrian Regional Branch of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party to power, and was appointed Commander of the Syrian Air Force by the new leadership. In 1966, Assad participated in a second coup, which toppled the traditional leaders of the Ba'ath Party, and brought a radical military faction headed by Salah Jadid to power. Assad was appointed defense minister by the new government. In 1970 Assad seized power by toppling Jadid, and appointed himself the undisputed leader of Syria in the period 1970–71. Assad de-radicalized the Ba'ath government when he took power, by giving more space to private property and strengthening the country's foreign relations with countries which his predecessor had deemed reactionary. He sided with the Soviet Union during the Cold War in turn for support against Israel. While he had forsaken pan-Arabism—or at least the pan-Arab concept of unifying the Arab world into one Arab nation—he did seek to make Syria the defender of Arab interest against Israel. When he took power, Assad instituted one-man rule and organized state services into sectarian lines (the Sunnis becoming the formal heads of political institutions, while the Alawites were given control over the military, intelligence and security apparatuses). The powers of collegial were curtailed, and were transferred to the presidency. The Syrian government stopped being a one-party system in the normal sense of the word, and was turned into a one-party state with a strong presidency. To maintain this system, a massive cult of personality centered around Assad and his family was created. Having become the main source of initiative inside the government, Assad began looking for a successor. His first choice as successor was his brother Rifaat al-Assad, widely seen as corrupt. In 1983–84, when Assad's health was in doubt, Rifaat al-Assad attempted to seize power, claiming that his brother wouldn't be fit to rule if he recovered. When Assad's health did improve Rifaat al-Assad was exiled from the country. His next choice of successor was his own son, Bassel al-Assad. However, things did not go according to plan, and in 1994 Bassel al-Assad died in a car accident. His third choice was his son Bashar al-Assad, who had by that time no practical political experience. This move was met with open criticism within some quarters of the ruling class, but Assad reacted by demoting several officials who opposed his succession plan. Assad died in 2000 and was succeeded by Bashar al-Assad as President and Syrian Regional Branch head. |
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