Destroying a Nation by Nikolaos van Dam5/30/2023 ![]() ![]() The detailed chapter on Assad senior’s thirty-year rule takes up a quarter of the book, explaining his trademark caution and how his 1970 coup was ‘the most understated in a long line of coups for the last twenty years’. The real meat comes halfway through, where he unravels the unique Hafez al-Assad methodology, essential to understanding how the Syrian state has survived nearly seven years of war. Yet Armanazi uses his position of particular privilege to provide not just an interesting collection of early photos (one of which shows Syrian women demonstrating in the 1950s) but a surprisingly candid account of how his country became ‘Assad’s Syria.’ Ghaith Armanazi’s The Story of Syria makes “no apology for a work I always intended to be a personal take on Syrian history.” Such a statement coming from a former diplomat often labelled an Assad apologist might put many a reader off. ![]() Thanks to the consistent military backing of its powerful allies Russia, Iran, and Lebanese Hezbollah, it is incrementally getting its own way. ![]() But three new books, despite their very different approaches, share a simple refrain – the ruling Assad regime sees no need to discuss a political solution. The Arabic caption reads: “Men who do not bow down except to God.”Ĭomplexity reigns in Syria, with multiple players still engaged on the world’s most chaotic battlefield. ![]()
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