Word: assad
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...cannot trust dictators. Unfortunately, the U.S. has proven itself as willing to climb into bed with Assad's Syria as it was to consort with Pinochet's Chile, Marcos' Phillipines and even Hussein's Iraq. Nasty governments do not necessarily make inexpedient allies...
...range of political beliefs within the anti-war movement, so no one agenda will be acceptable to all. In our opinion, the U.S. government is the most powerful force stifling democracy and upholding the dictators and autocrats of the region (i.e., the Shah, Zia Ul-Haq, King Fahd, Hafez Assad and before August, Saddam Hussein himself...
...gulf crisis came at an opportune moment for Assad, who has wanted to edge closer to the West anyway since his old patron, the Soviet Union, was no longer able to keep his military outfitted in the style to which he had grown accustomed. Still, Assad has kept his newfound allies at arm's length. While joining forces with the U.S.-led coalition against Saddam, Assad has been careful to maintain his nationalistic credentials within the Arab world by periodically bashing Washington and Israel in his public statements...
...aloofness is mutual, and for good reason: it is not easy to forget Assad's actions, like the 1982 massacre of some 20,000 civilians in the Syrian town of Hama while routing out Muslim fundamentalists, and his sponsorship of terrorists. "Assad's grisly record makes him unfit to serve as anything more than a temporary and tactical ally," says Daniel Pipes, director of the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia...
...everyone agrees. "It's possible that the West can work with Assad to make a better Mideast," says a senior Western diplomat in Damascus. What is not in dispute is the notion that, with or without the West's friendship, Assad would jump at the chance to become the unrivaled leader of the Pan- Arabists following Saddam's fall. Considering Assad's success in asserting Syrian control over Lebanon late last year, his room to maneuver already appears greater than it was before the crisis erupted...