Word: assad
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...year after his humiliation, Assad is stronger than ever
Atop a gray bluff overlooking Damascus, a palace of splendid proportions is slowly rising. When it is finished, it will be the residence of Syrian President Hafez Assad. The lofty home is testament to the adroit ways of Assad, a onetime air force commander who has dived and climbed his way through the stormy skies of Arab politics for 13 years. It is also something more: a gleaming symbol of Assad's faith in his future as a major powerbroker in the Middle East...
...Special Envoy Robert McFarlane is expected to carry to Syria on his first swing through the region this week, meeting with Jordan's King Hussein and Saudi Arabia's King Fahd, among others. There is no indication, however, that the argument will change Syrian President Hafez Assad's mind...
...officials in Washington could legitimately disagree. Last May Secretary of State George Shultz negotiated a Lebanese-Israeli accord providing for the withdrawal of Israel's 36,000 troops from Lebanon on the condition that Syria also pulled out its 60,000 men. But Syrian President Hafez Assad, who has received some $3.5 billion worth of arms from the Soviet Union over the past year, has refused to go along with the arrangement...
Meanwhile, Palestine Liberation Organization Leader Yasser Arafat is still trying desperately to contain the revolt that broke out two months ago within Fatah, the P.L.O.'s dominant group. His charge that Syrian President Hafez Assad fanned the rebellion prompted Syria to expel Arafat last month. Although thousands of his fighters remain in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, Arafat has had to move his base of operations to Tunisia while trying to win support from Arab leaders and the Soviet Union. The P.L.O. leader could take little comfort in the news from Moscow last week. According to a TASS report...