Word: syrians
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Life in exile isn't so bad -- just ask Rifaat Assad, the fiftysomething brother of Syrian strongman Hafez Assad. Rifaat once ran a 20,000-man militia at home but was kicked out of the country in 1983 when Hafez Assad began to worry about his sibling's lust for power. Since then Rifaat has lived the lush life of a global businessman, managing millions of dollars' worth of investments in Europe and the Middle East. He visits the properties with an entourage of 20 that includes his two wives and several shapely female "secretaries," all traveling aboard two customized...
...name and the word failure in the same news story, abandoned his first peace effort a year ago because of Israeli intransigence. Last week flashes of frustration occasionally cracked through his self-discipline. He slept poorly, acted testy with reporters after a 9 1/ 2-hour session with Syrian President Hafez Assad and went running to let off steam...
...missile mongering means Beijing has turned its back on a commitment to Washington that it would no longer sell such weapons in the region. Despite the U.S. pressure, China seems determined to continue the arms bazaar. Beijing officials are well aware that the U.S. is reluctant to stop Syrian President Hafez Assad -- an allied coalition partner in the gulf war -- from making a major weapons purchase...
General Norman Schwarzkopf privately has been harshly critical of the military performance of America's Arab allies. Using U.S. soldiers as the standard, he told Washington officials that only the Egyptian and Syrian armies displayed an adequate level of combat competence. But the general asserts that even the best Arab divisions were only about half as good as his own troops, who evidently rated a 10. The Soviet-trained Egyptian army, for example, was unable to adapt rapidly to fast-paced ground warfare. On one occasion Schwarzkopf had to request Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to order his troops into battle...
That may be what Olmert had in mind in an interview with TIME. He insisted that, far from wanting to give up the Golan, he thought Israel should try to negotiate a Syrian relinquishment of its claim. But he added, "I don't want to say what is the fallback position." On the subject of talks, he noted that while Syria, with Iraq out of the picture, has become Israel's most dangerous enemy, its leaders "might now change their position" as a result of participation in the gulf war. "So let's test them...