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A Tale of Two Assads: Lion and Cub
Bashar is still far short of what his father Hafez achieved thirty years ago this month in Hama; but he is making valiant efforts to catch up. It is sobering to think that Rabin almost gave up the Golan Heights to Syria.Thirty years ago this month, the decades-long conflict between the Muslim Brotherhood and the Syrian Army reached its climax. The city of Hama, the third-largest city in Syria, had long been a stronghold of the Muslim Brotherhood which, as Sunnis, had historically regarded the Alawites as heretics, little better than Jews or Christians. When the Alawite Hafez al-Assad took control of Syria in 1970 and his Alawite cronies instituted a brutal dictatorship, the Sunni majority was viciously repressed, and the Muslim Brotherhood -- the only organisation that dared to challenge Alawite tyranny -- became the heroes of the general population. Posted by: tipper 2012-03-06 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=340374 |