Commanding Syria: Bashar Al-Asad and the First Years in Power

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Bloomsbury Academic, 2007 - Political Science - 230 pages
"When Bashar al-Asad became President of Syria in June 2000, he had a tough act to follow. A quiet, unassuming ophthalmologist, trained in Britain, young Asad was successor to his dynamic, wily father Hafiz, who had consolidated power in his ethnically diverse and politically restive state through personal charisma, brute force and political balancing acts." "This is the first major work on Bashar al-Sad. It explains his emergence to power from the Byzantine manoeuvering of Asad family politics. It assesses the durability of Hafiz's legacy, including the persistent influence of the old power-brokers, the effectiveness of Bashar's attempts to move away from his father's shadow, and the prospects for reform in Syria. It examines the key events of Bashar's Presidency - the so-called "Damascus Spring', the decision not to support America's second war with Iraq in 2003, and the assassination of the former Lebanese Premier Rafik Hariri, and puts them into historical and political context. Above all Commanding Syria evaluates Bashar's continuing hold on power following Syria's humiliating retreat from Lebanon in Spring 2005 and the aggressive American drive to impose democracy in the Middle East."--BOOK JACKET.

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Contents

Taking the reins of power
2
Bashar alAsad the man and his regime
12
47
32
Copyright

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About the author (2007)

Eyal Zisser is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Middle East and African Studies and Research Fellow at the Moshe Dayan Center at Tel Aviv University. He is the author of Lebanon: The Challenge of Independence (I.B.Tauris, 2000).

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