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History and Government
History: Syria has been inhabited for tens of thousands of years and, as a result, has a rich cultural history. The area that is now Syria was part of the Empire of Mesopotamia around 2300 BC, during which time the cities of Ugarit (where the oldest written alphabet in the world is believed to have been developed) and Byblos grew to become powerful commercial centres. By about 500 BC, southern Syria had fallen under the control of Egypt, while the northern principalities had been welded into the Mitanni Empire. Within a few centuries, however, the Hittites from the north had overrun all of Syria, an empire that in turn collapsed in the face of invasions by the Mediterranean Sea peoples. The history of the following centuries, until the eventual destruction of the Kingdom of Judah in 539 BC, is one of a struggle by Babylonians, Canaanites, Assyrians, Phoenicians and many other tribes and empires for control of Syrian trade. Alexander the Great absorbed Syria into his empire in 333 BC, however, control of the region was disputed for the following two centuries – on this occasion between the various people trying to gain control of his inheritance.
For several centuries, the Province of Syria enjoyed the mixed blessings of the Pax Romana and was a province of the Eastern (Byzantine) Empire after the division of the Roman Empire. But even then, Syria was regarded as a frontier region, bordered to the east by the Arabs and Persians. The Persian invasions were repulsed but Syria eventually fell to the Muslims in the mid-seventh century. From then on, Syria was to be firmly part of the Muslim world, although retaining Christian and Jewish populations. Muslim control of Syria was vital to the defeat of the Christians and their expulsion from Jerusalem. However, during the 13th century, a far greater threat was the terrifying force of the Mongols. In the space of 50 years, they swept through Asia, creating an empire that stretched from Korea to Moscow. By 1260, they had overrun Syria and deposed the Abbasid Khalif. The Muslim world – and, indeed, the Christian one – seemed doomed. But in that year, the Mamluk General Baybars defeated the massive army of Hulagu at the Battle of Goliath’s Well – a victory that, in retrospect, must be seen as one of the world’s most decisive military engagements. By 1520, the region had fallen under the sway of the Ottoman Turks and, as a result, Syria prospered once – for the most part.
The 19th century was a period of increasing restlessness in the area – Napoleon’s campaign in 1799/1800, the Egyptian invasion in the 1830s and the insurrection in 1860-61 are three instances of this. The Turks were defeated in World War I and Syria was occupied by the French for a short time, before Syria was granted full independence in 1946. Three years later, the country came under the first of a series of military dictatorships that have governed the country for most of the subsequent period. As in the rest of the Middle East, Arab nationalism became a major political force during the 1950s – indeed, the influence of Nasser’s revolution in Egypt on the Syrians was so strong that Syria joined Egypt in forming the United Arab Republic in 1958. The alliance was short-lived, Syria seceding in 1961, to form the Syrian Arab Republic. The most powerful political force in Syria since then has been the Ba’ath Party or Arab Socialist Renaissance (see Iraq), which seized power in 1971, under the leadership of General Hafez al-Assad who ruled at the head of a tightly controlled dictatorship, until his death in June 2000. Assad’s main power base was the Alawite group, a Muslim sect to which ten per cent of the Syrian population is affiliated. With the tactical and strategic skill that was his trademark, Assad comfortably dealt with the challenges to his supremacy – largely through his control of the army and the country’s myriad intelligence organisations.
The major exception occurred in February 1982, when the Muslim Brotherhood – the principal opposition group confronting the Assad regime – launched a rebellion from the town of Hama. The rebellion was crushed, with several thousand deaths, by military forces led by Assad’s brother Rifaat who then controlled the country’s security forces. A few months afterwards, Assad then faced his most serious foreign policy challenge since the loss of the Golan Heights – an area bordering Syria and Israel – in the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Syria perceived Israel’s strategy as establishing a Christian-dominated client state, underpinned by Israeli military power. Syria could not hope to match the Israelis militarily but Assad nonetheless managed to manoeuvre Syria into a dominant position in Lebanon. This he achieved by supporting the main Lebanese Muslim militias, Amal and Hezbollah, and then introducing a substantial military presence of its own, remaining careful to avoid direct confrontation with the Israelis (see Israel and Lebanon). In 1984, the Israelis moved into a self-styled ‘security zone’ south of the Litani River and in 1999, after a decade and a half of attritional guerrilla warfare with the Syrian-backed Hezbollah, the Israelis pulled out altogether. Syria, meanwhile, had established a political and military dominance over Lebanon, which continues to this day. Apart from anything else, this served to confirm that Syria was indispensable to a comprehensive settlement in the Middle East. Syria’s relations with the West reached a nadir during the late 1980s. Its traditional close relations with the Soviet Union became less important with Damascus’ direct implication in a number of terrorist incidents around that time and its support for groups like Hezbollah, categorised by the West as terrorist organisations. However, the 1991 Gulf War came as an unexpected blessing, with the USA eager to attract Arab states into the anti-Iraqi coalition. As an implacable opponent of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq – dating back to the 1960s ideological split in the Ba’ath movement – the Syrians were happy to oblige and into the bargain secured substantial financial support and the guarantee of a free hand in Lebanon. But Syria has yet to secure its main objective – the return of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights – and has made clear that unless the issue is settled, Syria will not follow Egypt and Jordan in reaching a formal peace with the Jewish state.
In June 2000, after years of failing health, President Assad died. Having fallen out with his brother, Rifaat, some years earlier, and with the accidental death of his eldest son, Basil, in 1994, Assad had selected his second son, Bashar, as heir. While domestic policy has seen something of a relaxation under Bashar, Western hopes that Syria would pursue a more pro-Western line have proved misguided – in the vocabulary of the US Bush administration, Syria is a ‘state of concern’ (one level below the ‘axis of evil’). Nonetheless, In October 2001, despite opposition from the US, Syria became a member of the United Nations Security Council, as its principal Asian representative. However, as a non-permanent member, Syria lacks the power of veto. The Syrians have provided some assistance to the Western ‘War Against Terror’ in the form of intelligence on the al-Qaeda set-up, although they have been firm opponents of any prospective ‘Gulf War II’, the Anglo-American plan to invade Iraq and depose Saddam Hussein. This has little to do with support for Iraq – with whom relations are a little better than they were a decade earlier – and is mainly concerned with the West’s backing for Israel’s hard line on the Palestinian issue and consistent hostility (as they see it) towards Damascus itself.
Government: The 1973 constitution allows for a single-chamber legislature, the 250-member People’s Assembly. Executive power is vested in the president who is directly elected for a seven-year term.
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