Word: assads
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...Assad has no intention of pulling out of Lebanon, at least so long as the Israelis supply and advise the Christian militiamen. He has recently set about purging Israeli-trained officers from the Lebanese army and dismantling the various factions' checkpoints and military facilities in Beirut, thus leaving only the Syrian army responsible for security in the capital. Assad's goal is to have a Syrian presence throughout Lebanon, except for the areas south of the Litani River, which are patrolled by units of the 6,000-man United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL...
Back home, Assad, 48, remains firmly in control after eight years in power. In almost every way, the law of Syria?sometimes benevolent, often harsh?represents the will of Assad. When there was widespread criticism of corruption last year, he took a hard look at the influence buying of top government officials by free-spending entrepreneurs and fired his Premier, the Deputy Premier, a score of high-ranking civil servants and about a hundred more of lower rank...
...Assad does have opposition. Syria is a predominantly Sunni Muslim country. There are complaints that the Alawites, an Islamic sect to which Assad belongs, represent only 10% of the people most top government offices. Some hard-line Baath Party members grumble that Assad is watering down the Marxist policies of previous regimes, while Syrian entrepreneurs think he has moved too slowly away from Baathism's doctrinaire socialism...
...Assad is no democrat. The opposition is subjected to wiretapping, and enemies of the regime are not only imprisoned or exiled but sometimes publicly hung in Damascus' main square after summary trials. Assad keeps the security forces firmly under his control (all of the senior officers must be Alawi). Inside Damascus, a special 9,000-man infantry division, commanded by Assad's brother Rifaat, protects the President and his regime. There are stories of Rifaat's ruthless excesses: people losing a choice villa or apartment because he wanted it for a friend, or brutal beatings of someone who is less...
...Assad's admirers call him "the Tito of the Arab world"?a military man who has become an astute politician on a precarious world stage. In seven years, Syria's per capita income has jumped 203% to the present $760, more than twice that of Egypt. The Soviet Union's stranglehold on Syrian imports and exports of the early 1970s has been broken, and today the U.S., Europe and Japan do more business in Syria than does Moscow. Assad is also trying to broaden his country's foreign political alignments. Egyptian President Anwar Sadat's visit to Jerusalem, which...