Table of Contents

Part 1 Syria under Asad - regime and state: Asad's regime - the three orbits - Alawi, Syrian and Arab; the system of government in Asad's Syria. Part 2 A new path: the friendship that failed - Syria in the shadow of the Soviet collapse; the start of the new path -Syria during the Gulf crisis. Part 3 Syrian foreign policy in the 1990s: Syria - between East and West; Israel and Syria - on the road to peace; Syria in Lebanon. Part 4 Inside Syria - a country at a cross-roads: the struggle over succession; Syria - state, society and economy in the 1990s.

Reviews

From the 1940s to the end of the 1960s, Syria knew no political stability. Three military coups in a single year (1949) and a brief union with Egypt (1958-61) were interspersed with unstable, short-lived governments. Syria was a pawn in the overlapping arenas of Arab, Arab-Israeli, and U.S.-Soviet diplomacy. Then, in 1970, Hafiz al-Assad began his one-man rule that was ended only by his death last year. How did he survive where others had not? In brisk chapters, Zisser sets out the major strands of Assad's political record, including the establishment of virtual Syrian protectorate over Lebanon; its adjustment after the demise of its Cold War patron, the Soviet Union; and the movement from war to negotiations-but still no peace-with Israel. Zisser sees Assad as masterful tactician who nonetheless lacked useful basis for appraising the prospects and pitfalls facing his son and successor, Bashar.
*Foreign Affairs*