President Assad's foreign policy

Abstract

This 'thesis' is a study of Assad's foreign policy and the factors that helped him consolidate his power and transform his country from a proxy state to a regional power. Syria's relations with its neighbors and the two superpowers are discussed in detail. Syria's strategic significance is accentuated here; it is a remarkable specimen in the Middle East political aquarium. Syria had a glorious history. The Syrians are working very hard to restore that glory--the glory of Great Syria. Syria's modern history has been a saga of coups and counter-coups. Under the leadership of President Assad, Syria has been transformed from a weak, shaky and vulnerable country into an apparently strong and stable state, a regional power in the Middle East. What the Syrians and their president want is precisely what nationalists have always wanted in every part of the world; an integrated (Syrian) society, which is industrialized, modernized, centralized, socialized and populated by proud and spirited masses; which enjoys the benefits of economic prowess; and which is capable of sustaining its independence in the anarchic, chronically unstable, pervasively violent and breathtakingly convulsive Middle East