When Syrian tanks and soldiers poured into the rebellious southern flashpoint city of Dara’a last month, the Twittersphere lit up with wry comments like “Hey army, that’s Dara’a, not the Golan!” mocking the fact that the same army shooting its own people hadn’t fired a bullet in decades to liberate the Golan Heights, captured by Israel in the 1967 war and still the center of the long-simmering conflict between Israel and Syria. In fact, Damascus has long worked hard to ensure the strategic plateau remained one of the quietest border areas in the Middle East, branding the area a military zone and maintaining tight control.
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Syria’s Assad: What Forces Can He Count on to Survive?
The last time Syrians took on their ruling Ba’athist regime it was 1982. The protesters then were Islamists from the Muslim Brotherhood.
Assad and Reform: Damned if He Does, Doomed if He Doesn’t
Once upon a time, Syria erected a formidable barrier of fear that kept its citizens in check for decades. Today, however, authoritarian Baathist rule isn’t looking all that insurmountable anymore
Syria: Who Is the Real President Assad?
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s carefully cultivated image as a modest leader with reformist leanings, close to his people and understanding of their concerns, has taken a severe beating after a month of brutal security measures against a burgeoning civil protest movement for greater freedoms that has slowly stretched across the country. The tall, trim, blue-eyed father of three has responded to the uprising in his country, the greatest challenge to his 11-year rule, with a characteristic mix of soft and hard measures, promising reform while also unleashing his security forces on the streets to crush dissent
Why Syria’s President Doesn’t Like Fridays
Today was not a good Friday for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Across Syria, tens of thousands of people once again streamed into the streets
The Arab Spring: Is This the Syrian Regime’s Playbook?
A man in a white shirt lies motionless, apparently dead, on an otherwise empty road, his arms and legs splayed at awkward angles. Intense gunfire crackles as four black-clad anti-riot policemen in helmets and shields run up to the body, several beat it with their batons before dragging it along the asphalt by its feet
The Revolution Stops Here
Sheik Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the influential Qatar-based Islamic scholar, recently preached that the “train of the Arab revolution” had arrived in Syria. Syria could well be ripe for upheaval
The Syrian President’s Speech: Surprise! There’s No Surprise
It’s not as if President Bashar al-Assad didn’t have time to go through a few revisions of his much anticipated, much delayed speech before he finally delivered it to Syria’s pliant parliamentarians on Wednesday. It fell well short of the expectations of many, but the MPs gushed over their 45-year-old leader, rising to their feet several times to cheer and chant “with our souls and with our blood we will sacrifice for you Bashar!” and “God, Syria, Bashar — only!” At least a dozen stood to shout their support during his speech, or spout sycophantic poetry — though some of the TV shots seemed to have been set up to capture these ostensibly spontaneous events before they happened.
Syria’s Crisis: How Much Rides on the President’s Speech
In his 11 years in power, Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad, has cultivated an everyman image of himself, in stark contrast to the formal, distant mien of his late father and predecessor Hafez. The late president was feared more than he was loved.
Syria’s Emergency Law Set for Repeal, Says Assad Adviser
Syria’s emergency law enshrines the autocratic nature of the Assad dynasty’s rule.