A Comprehensive Study On The Modern Syria

Syria's political structures and its economy, its external affairs have undergone enormous changes since it gained full independence and sovereignty in 1946. According to its constitution, independent Syria was a parliamentary democracy, De facto power was concerntrated in the hands of the big landlord class and nationalists. From 1949 the country's domestic politics and society experienced a series of military takeovers and coup attempts. In the mid-1950s Syria became the focus of a regional conflict concerning the establishment of a Western-oriented military alliance, the Baghdad Pact. Syria's hasty and ill-prepared unification with Egypt in 1958 was terminated by a group of conservative Syrian officers and it re-emerged as a sovereignty state, with the political elite of the 1950s back in power for another year and a half.With the coup, or "revolution"as it was thenceforward referred to, of 8 March 1963, a new power elite took over. The political system of the Ancien Regime, formally at least a parliamentary democracy, was replaced by an internally fragile regime composed of competing forces of Ba'th, namely the civilian leaders of the Ba'th party and young military officers of strong nationalist and, for the most part, socialist convictions, who eventually got the upper hand. In February 1966, a radical wing of the Ba'th party, led by officers of mainly middle class, rural and minority, particalarly Alawi origin, gained the upper hand by military forces.In November 1970, after some two years of open conflict within the power elite about both internal and foreign policy directions, General Hafiz al-Asad took power in a new military coup. With his coup or "Correctionist Movement" as it has since been officially called, "socialism", though maintained as a tenet in the rhetoric of the ruling party, was turned from the old radical lines. Restrictions of the private sector were relaxed and rapid economic growth, largely through public expenditure, became the main objective of economic and development policies. The new regime improved its relations with the Arab states and strengthened its ties with Egypt. The October War of 1973 was, though not a military victory, certainly a political one. The combination of such national success and tangible economic growth allowedAsad to enjoy a high degree of popularity and legitimacy for many years.Only after Asad's takeover did stable political structures emerge. In 1971, a parliament was established; in 1972, the Progressive National Front, an institutionalized coalition of the Ba'th party with a group of smaller but active parties, was set up; and in 1973 a new constitution was promulgated. Over the Asad years, regime institutions were developed, the bureaucracy expanded, and corporatist structures bringing large parts of the society under the organizing system of the state were set up and consolidated. General internal stability helped make it possible in regional politics. Syria's importance on the regional scene grew with Egypt's signing its peace treaty with Israel and its subsequent ouster from the Arab League in 1979. Remaining the only confrontation state Israel had to take seriously, Syria began to develop a doctrine of national security which stipulated that it alone build up a strategic parity with the enemy. Syrian leadership had to lean more heavily on the Soviet Union. A Soviet-Syrian Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation was signed in 1980. In the following years, its involvement deeply into the Lebanon's civil war, its support of Iran in the first Gulf War, the Syrian regime manoeuvred itself into a somewhat isolated position. Only in the late 1980s did a series of decisive moves to improve its regional position meet with considerable success. Syria's participation in the anti-Iraqi coalition during the Gulf Crisis and War of 1990/91 reflected its generally pragmatic policy. So did Syria's decision to take part in the US-sponsored Middle East peace negotiations that started with the Madrid conference of October 1991. Since its acceptance of UN...