By Radwan Ziadeh

In an risky center East, beset through neighborhood tensions and repercussions of the worldwide struggle on terror, Syria is a key participant. The cold coup through basic Hafez al-Assad, in 1970, installed position a strong autocratic equipment on the middle of the kingdom which maintains until this day lower than the regulate of his son Bashar. the following Radwan Ziadeh offers a clean and penetrating research of Syria’s political constitution -- a "despotic" nation monopoly, a bureaucratic weather marked by way of worry, and the executive constitution in which centralized keep watch over is exercised. With a spotlight on Syria’s intelligence prone that have major effect in criminal and coverage judgements, and the stipulations and styles of international coverage decision-making, rather vis-?-vis the U.S., strength and coverage in Syria is vital interpreting for all these drawn to Syria, the trendy center East, diplomacy and defense reports.

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Extra resources for Power and Policy in Syria: Intelligence Services, Foreign Relations and Democracy in the Modern Middle East (Library of Modern Middle East Studies)

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There was no constitutional difficulty in doing this so long as the People’s Assembly was the party authorized to do it. In practice, all that was needed was a telephone call from al-Asad declaring the date to which he wished the referendum to be postponed. 98 per cent of the vote irrespective of when the referendum took place. 56 Asad’s behaviour during the so-called referendum was a reflection of his general leadership style, particularly during the last years of his life. As I have already mentioned, he rarely attended the meetings of the Baʿth Party’s regional leaders even though, constitutionally and politically, this was the highest governing body in the country; rather, he would content himself with conveying his instructions to the meeting by telephone, instructions he would immediately expect to see ratified and executed.

However, retaining some and excluding others seems undoubtedly to carry a clear political message, especially considering that al-Asad relied on ‘his men’ to maintain his authority. During this process, al-Asad showed a great deal of loyalty to all those who had worked with him and been committed to his approach. So, no political, military, security or even administrative member of staff was changed unless he had committed a serious crime or made a flagrant mistake, in which case he would be removed from his post but could retain his social status, provided he kept out of the limelight.

He was later put on trial and sentenced to 15 years imprisonment for having exceeded his brief by attempting to blackmail some ministers whom he wanted to involve 39 POWER AND POLICY IN SYRIA in some disputes with him by videotaping them with a female dancer, but he died in August 2002. Meanwhile, four officers were promoted from general to major general, which was an unusual proceeding. As a result of these promotions, Major General ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sayyid, along with Major General Ḥasan Turkmānī, became deputy chiefs of staff.

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