Word: coup
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...affairs in Lebanon. And around the country, iconic images of the doctor became nearly as familiar as those of his father. He seems to have picked up at least a few of his father's hardball tactics. When his uncle Rifaat--who was exiled to Europe after a failed coup attempt--started questioning Bashar's ability to lead last fall, the younger man's allies led Syrian forces in a raid against an "illegal" coastal stronghold owned by Rifaat...
...father certainly bequeathed Bashar more than enough enemies to keep him awake nights. For one, there's his uncle Rifaat, exiled since leading a failed coup attempt against his father in 1983 - and against whose supporters Hafez and Bashar, of late, have conducted a campaign of violent harassment. Rifaat made clear Monday that, having held the title of deputy president before his ouster, he, and not Bashar, should succeed Hafez Assad. Syria's security forces have pledged to arrest the outcast uncle should he attempt to come home, but that hasn't stopped him from stirring up trouble...
...Then there's the Muslim Brotherhood, whose efforts to rouse the country's Sunni Muslim majority against the minority Alawite Assad regime were brutally suppressed. It was Rifaat, ironically, before his coup attempt, who authored the most notorious campaign of violence against the Brotherhood in 1982, when he leveled the city of Hama following a Muslim uprising there, killing up to 20,000 people. While they're unlikely to accept Rifaat any more gladly than Bashar, in statements since Assad's death they've echoed the exiled brother's criticism of the succession process that has positioned Bashar to take...
...allowing limited coverage of proceedings--most notably in the trial of 13 Jewish Iranians accused of spying for Israel. Despite sanctioning the press crackdown, spiritual leader Ayatullah Ali Khamenei--successor to Khomeini--has warned religious militants against thuggery and publicly praises Khatami--as if cautioning security forces against a coup. But Khamenei rejects any vision of freedom that threatens Islam's position in power. "As long as I live," he warned in a recent Friday sermon, "I will not allow anybody to lead the country toward secularism...
...rather than the Sunni Muslim majority, as well as the fact that the primary guarantor of power is not the electorate or even the ruling party, but the military, which propelled Hafez Assad to power in 1970 as a young air force officer at the head of a peaceful coup. Assad proved a masterful strategist, managing his country's internal power struggles, regional conflicts and the Cold War and its aftermath to build Syria into a major Middle Eastern power. Having used Soviet patronage to build a military capability second only to Israel's, he smartly fell in line with...