Word: bashar
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Bashar sought to placate the Bush Administration by helping nail some al-Qaeda suspects after 9/11. But the closer the U.S. came to war in Iraq, the more Bashar played to the Arab gallery. He denounced U.S. aggression and hailed Iraq's resistance. His performance enthralled the Arab street, where demonstrators chanted, "Bashar, Bashar, set the world on fire!" But it deep-sixed Syria's relations with...
...Bashar, it turns out, is his father's son after all. He is as obsessed with the Arab struggle against Israel as Hafez ever was. On Bashar's watch, Syria's military grip on neighboring Lebanon has loosened only slightly. Syria's support for violent groups like Hizballah and Hamas is unwavering. Despite his Western education, he's in no hurry to promote reforms that might threaten his regime's control. Like his father, Bashar is ready for a peace deal with Israel that wins back the Golan Heights, lost in the 1967 war, but he is holding...
...have schooled his son well in Mideast topology, but it seems he skipped a few pointers for handling the U.S. Many considered Hafez a master of the double game, a man who could have American diplomats queuing up for talks even as Syria sponsored global acts of terror. Bashar began to irritate Washington within months of taking office--in early 2001 he reneged on a quiet understanding to shut down a pipeline pumping illicit oil out of Iraq...
Inexperience is part of Bashar's problem. He entered politics only after his older brother Basil, Hafez's carefully groomed heir, died in a 1994 car accident. Bashar is said to be shy and self-effacing in private. He has tried to soften some of the uglier edges of Baath Party rule, closing down the notorious Mazza prison and releasing hundreds of political prisoners. Yet he bows to the influence of his father's Old Guard cronies who exert control over Syria's military and intelligence services. That thwarted his initial flirtation with greater political and economic freedom...
...April 19th, Rashid Kokas pulled back a dirty white cloth from a skeleton believed to be his brother, Bashar. "No one says, no one knows," he cried, the universal chant of mourners denied information about loved ones disappeared into Saddam's Gulag. A follower of radical Shiite cleric Mohamed Al Sadr, Bashar was arrested on July 1, 2000 and accused of seditious religious activity. Rashid says that after bribing guards he learned his 30-year-old brother had been hung. Pressing for confirmation, Rashid was told to back off or face the same...