Word: assad
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...last time a public call to duty occurred was in 1978. Both countries described their actions as routine, but the activity fed speculation about possible retaliation for the suicidal attacks against the U.S. Marine compound in Beirut* and an Israeli military base in Tyre. In response, Syrian President Hafez Assad placed his country's armed forces on alert too, including the calling up of an estimated 100,000 reservists. Washington and Jerusalem both publicly assured Assad that they had no intention of attacking Syria, but a suspicious Assad surely noted that the U.S. and Israel had agreed to forge...
...alarm over the spreading violence. At a banquet honoring Syrian Foreign Minister Abdel Halim Khaddam in Moscow late last week, Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko said that "we consider as extremely urgent the need to overcome strife and restore unity in the ranks of the Palestinian movement." The message to Assad: ease up on Arafat...
...troops in southern Lebanon and drove Arafat and his fighters out of Beirut. His dalliance with King Hussein of Jordan last April over President Reagan's September 1982 peace initiative, which called for the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip to be linked to Jordan, enraged Assad and convinced him that Arafat must be reined in. The chance came in May, when Arafat promoted several controversial commanders within Al-Fatah, the guerrilla group that he founded and that still accounts for about 80% of the P.L.O.'s strength. Fanned by Syria, the rebellion in Arafat...
...course, the United States is rightfully wary of Soviet interests in the Middle East. But we believe the Soviet could prove accommodating on the Syrian question. Moscow's support for Assad's regime is in truth an attempt to regain the foothold in the region lost when Sadat kicked the Soviets out of Egypt. If we allow the U.S.S.R. to reenier the negotiating process, they may well cease wasting their resources to fuel the Syrian military and seek simply to have their interests met at the negotiating table...
...running in circles in the Middle East. A chief U.S. policy objective has been to check Syrian efforts to fuel conflict between Christians and Druse, just as they are fanning the flames of the internal PLO dispute. However, relying on the strictly voluntary cooperation of Syrian President Assad, who is eager to claim Lebanon as "rightful" Syrian territory, would not appear to be the most effective course of action...