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Syria's Assad No Longer in Vogue

(Foreign Affairs) Tony Badran - The Arab revolutionary wave of 2011 has reached Syria. Its arrival has forced a reassessment of the Bashar al-Assad regime's domestic legitimacy and prospects for survival. Assad was supposed to be immune to this kind of popular movement. His anti-American policies and enmity toward Israel were thought to boost his legitimacy in the eyes of his people. Assad could not have pursued real reform even if he had wanted to, as this would have meant taking on the corruption of his immediate family. Assad's cousin, the billionaire Makhlouf, is widely considered to be the second-most powerful man in the country, using his business empire to co-opt the Sunni merchant class. (Makhlouf, Assad, and most of the ruling elite and high-ranking officers are Alawites, a minority sect.) To democratize is to take the Alawite hand off the tiller. The writer is a Research Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
2011-03-28 00:00:00
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