Word: baath
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Assad's religion that put him on the path to power. With few career opportunities available to a non-Sunni, Assad entered the military academy at 22; by 25, he was an air force officer. Around that time, the ambitious Assad became active in the country's Baath Party, which advocates a mixture of socialism and Arab nationalism. After the Baathists seized power in 1963, Assad became general of the air force, then Minister of Defense. In 1970, living up to his name, which translates as "lion," Assad staged his own coup. Hisback as straight as a bayonet...
...diplomats toward the Arabs and their cause." At the time of the signing, the Syrians expressed their displeasure by closing highways in the Syrian-controlled areas of northern and eastern Lebanon. The Syrians have hinted that they might close the Syrian-Lebanese border indefinitely. The newspaper of the ruling Baath Party spoke of "a crushing civil war that would splinter Lebanon's unity and cancel its existence as a country...
...with open arms. The Shi'ites are not saying anything these days. They are waiting for the Iranian army to get here before they show their true feelings." All the commanders at the first line of Iraq's land defenses are loyal members of Saddam's Baath Party, and the men they command all belong to the Sunni sect, the ancient rivals of the Shi'ites...
...Iraqi Shi'ites exiled in Iran, the payment of $150 billion in war reparations and "punishment of the aggressor." For Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini and other mullahs in the government hierarchy, the last condition means nothing less than Saddam Hussein's ouster, the destruction of the ruling Baath Party and the establishment of a pro-Iran Shi'ite regime in Baghdad...
...also assumed that Iraq's Shi'ite Muslims, who form 55% of the country's population, would rise up against the Saddam Hussein government and welcome the Iranian liberators. After that, Khomeini believed, it would be an easy matter to overthrow Saddam and his ruling Baath Party and to establish an Islamic republic in Iraq. But so far, the Iraqis have fought bravely and the Iraqi Shi'ites have shown no signs of mass rebellion...