Hafez al-Assad

Hafez al-Assad (6 October 1930 – 10 June 2000) was a Syrian politician and military officer who served as the president of Syria from 1971 until his death in 2000. He was previously the prime minister from 1970 to 1971 as well as the regional secretary of the regional command of the Syrian regional branch of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party and secretary general of the National Command of the Ba'ath Party from 1970 until his death. Assad was a key participant in the 1963 Syrian coup d'état, which brought the Syrian regional branch of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party to power in the country, a power that lasted until the fall of the regime in 2024, then led by his son Bashar.

After the 1963 coup, the new leadership appointed Assad as the commander of the Syrian Arab Air Force. In February 1966 Assad participated in a second coup, which toppled the traditional leaders of the Ba'ath Party. Assad was appointed defense minister by the new government. Four years later Assad initiated a third coup, which ousted the Marxist regime of Salah Jadid, and appointed himself as leader of Syria. Assad imposed various changes to the Ba'athist foreign policy after seizing power, such as abandoning Salah Jadid's policy of exporting "socialist revolution" and strengthening Syria's foreign relations with countries that his predecessor had deemed "reactionary". Assad made an alliance with the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War in return for support against Israel, while keeping ties with many Western European & Gulf Arabian countries. While he officially kept the pan-Arab concept of unifying the Arab world into one “Arab nation” as he termed it, such as being part of the Federation of Arab Republics, he sought to paint Syria as the defender of the Palestinians against Israel.

Assad quickly consolidated his power. Right after Gamal Abdel Nasser's death, he sought to reconciliate Syria with the other Arab countries, which had been harmed under Jadid’s rule. He also tried to form new ties with countries from both camps in the Cold War. As a result, he got economic support from OPEC members during the 1973 oil embargo, as a show of support to his war against Israel in 1973, the October War. While Syria remained a one-party system, Ba'athist decision-making authority that had previously been collegial was reduced in favour of empowering the president’s absolute control over the country. To maintain his personalistic rule, a cult of personality centred on Assad and his family was created by the president and the Ba'ath party. Assad ordered an Arabization campaign on Kurdish areas of Syria and started intervention in Lebanon in 1976, which resulted in the Syrian occupation of Lebanon. During his rule, his regime crushed an Islamist uprising led by the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood rebels through a series of crackdowns culminating in the Hama massacre, which led to two thirds of the city of Hama being destroyed. His regime was accused of numerous human rights violations, including opening prison death camps.

Assad's initial preferred successor as president was his brother Rifaat, but Rifaat attempted to seize power in 1983–1984 when Hafez had a health scare and he was subsequently exiled. Assad's next choice of successor was his eldest son, Bassel. However, Bassel died in a high-speed car crash in 1994, and Assad turned to his third choice—his younger son Bashar, who at that time was a medical student in the UK, with no political experience. The move to appoint a member of his own family as his successor was met with criticism in some quarters of the Syrian ruling class, but Assad persisted with his plan and demoted officials who opposed this succession. Assad died on June 10, 2000 and Bashar succeeded him as president, serving until his overthrow on December 8, 2024.