Fifty years ago the Assad regime was not expected to last

After 50 years, the Al-Assad family’s iron grip on Syria has today been broken. This latest, historic news reminds me of a strategic briefing I received in Beirut back in 1971.

I was taking over as regional bureau chief from Ian Macdowall, before he went back to London as Chief News Editor.  Typically for Reuters in those days, we had just a one-week handover.  Ian introduced me to his contacts and opened up the files and I made copious notes, covering all the current hot spots of the Middle East.  Syria was not one of them.

Finally he passed me a rather fat folder, just before he left.  “This is the Syria file,” he said.  “You won’t need it for a year or two, but you had better be ready.”  

Syria had experienced a series of violent regime changes in the previous decade or more.  The Air Force Commander, Hafez Al-Assad, had only seized total power in 1970, the third coup d’etat in which he had taken part.  He was a member of the minority Alawite tribe.  None of the experts I met in those days expected him to last very long.  

In fact, he swiftly secured a ruthless power base, military and political, for himself and his family that lasted until Dec. 8.  His son, Bashar Al-Assad, took over seamlessly from his father 24 years ago.  Over the years, the father and then the son survived some serious challenges, both using extreme brutality.  Crucially Hafez Al-Assad put down an Islamic revolt in 1981-1982 in the central city of Hama.  Bashar Al-Assad had clung to power since the current civil war broke out in 2011.

Other Reuters colleagues will have more graphic memories of Syria’s violent modern history, particularly Bernd Debusmann who still carries the legacy of an assassin’s bullet in his back from the 1980s.

Macdowall’s Al-Assad file can now finally be closed, but not the Syrian story.  I would not attempt to make any predictions on what will happen next.

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