Syria was occupied successively by Canaanites, Phoenicians, Hebrews,
Arameans, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans,
Nabataeans, Byzantines, and, in part, Crusaders before finally
coming under the control of the Ottoman Turks. Syria is significant
in the history of Christianity; Paul was converted on the road to
Damascus and established the first organized Christian Church at
Antioch in ancient Syria, from which he left on many of his
missionary journeys.
Damascus, settled about 2500 B.C., is one of the oldest continuously
inhabited cities in the world. It came under Muslim rule in A.D.
636. Immediately thereafter, the city's power and prestige reached
its peak, and it became the capital of the Omayyad Empire, which
extended from Spain to India from A.D. 661 to A.D. 750, when the
Abbasid caliphate was established at Baghdad, Iraq.
Damascus became a provincial capital of the Mameluke Empire around
1260. It was largely destroyed in 1400 by Tamerlane, the Mongol
conqueror, who removed many of its craftsmen to Samarkand. Rebuilt,
it continued to serve as a capital until 1516. In 1517, it fell
under Ottoman rule. The Ottomans remained for the next 400 years,
except for a brief occupation by Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt from 1832 to
1840.
French Occupation
Independence to 1970
Syria's political instability during the years after the 1954 coup,
the parallelism of Syrian and Egyptian policies, and the appeal of
Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser's leadership in the wake of
the 1956 Suez crisis created support in Syria for union with Egypt.
On February 1, 1958, the two countries merged to create the United
Arab Republic, and all Syrian political parties ceased overt
activities.
The union was not a success, however. Following a military coup on
September 28, 1961, Syria seceded, reestablishing itself as the
Syrian Arab Republic. Instability characterized the next 18 months,
with various coups culminating on March 8, 1963, in the installation
by leftist Syrian Army officers of the National Council of the
Revolutionary Command (NCRC), a group of military and civilian
officials who assumed control of all executive and legislative
authority. The takeover was engineered by members of the Arab
Socialist Resurrection Party (Ba'ath Party), which had been active
in Syria and other Arab countries since the late 1940s. The new
cabinet was dominated by Ba'ath members.
The Ba'ath takeover in Syria followed a Ba'ath coup in Iraq the
previous month. The new Syrian Government explored the possibility
of federation with Egypt and Ba'ath--controlled Iraq. An agreement
was concluded in Cairo on April 17, 1963, for a referendum on unity
to be held in September 1963. However, serious disagreements among
the parties soon developed, and the tripartite federation failed to
materialize. Thereafter, the Ba'ath regimes in Syria and Iraq began
to work for bilateral unity. These plans foundered in November 1963,
when the Ba'ath regime in Iraq was overthrown. In May 1964,
President Amin Hafiz of the NCRC promulgated a provisional
constitution providing for a National Council of the Revolution
(NCR), an appointed legislature composed of representatives of mass
organizations--labor, peasant, and professional unions--a
presidential council, in which executive power was vested, and a
cabinet. On February 23, 1966, a group of army officers carried out
a successful, intra-party coup, imprisoned President Hafiz,
dissolved the cabinet and the NCR, abrogated the provisional
constitution, and designated a regionalist, civilian Ba'ath
government. The coup leaders described it as a "rectification" of
Ba'ath Party principles. The defeat of the Syrians and Egyptians in
the June 1967 war with Israel weakened the radical socialist regime
established by the 1966 coup. Conflict developed between a moderate
military wing and a more extremist civilian wing of the Ba'ath
Party. The 1970 retreat of Syrian forces sent to aid the PLO during
the "Black September" hostilities with Jordan reflected this
political disagreement within the ruling Ba'ath leadership. On
November 13, 1970, Minister of Defense Hafiz al-Asad affected a
bloodless military coup, ousting the civilian party leadership and
assuming the role of prime minister.
1970 to 2000
The authoritarian regime was not without its critics, though most
were quickly dealt with. A serious challenge arose in the late
1970s, however, from fundamentalist Sunni Muslims, who reject the
basic values of the secular Ba'ath program and object to rule by the
Alawis, whom they consider heretical. From 1976 until its
suppression in 1982, the archconservative Muslim Brotherhood led an
armed insurgency against the regime. In response to an attempted
uprising by the brotherhood in February 1982, the government crushed
the fundamentalist opposition centered in the city of Hama, leveling
parts of the city with artillery fire and causing many thousands of
dead and wounded. Since then, public manifestations of anti-regime
activity have been very limited.
Syria's 1990 participation in the U.S.-led multinational coalition
aligned against Saddam Hussein marked a dramatic watershed in
Syria's relations both with other Arab states and with the West.
Syria participated in the multilateral Middle East Peace Conference
in Madrid in October 1991, and during the 1990s engaged in direct,
face-to-face negotiations with Israel. These negotiations failed,
and there have been no further Syrian-Israeli talks since President
Hafiz Al-Asad's meeting with then President Bill Clinton in Geneva
in March 2000.
Hafiz Al-Asad died on June 10, 2000, after 30 years in power.
Immediately following Al-Asad's death, the Parliament amended the
constitution, reducing the mandatory minimum age of the President
from 40 to 34 years old, which allowed his son, Bashar Al-Asad
legally to be eligible for nomination by the ruling Ba'ath party. On
July 10, 2000, Bashar Al-Asad was elected President by referendum in
which he ran unopposed, garnering 97.29% of the vote, according to
Syrian Government statistics. He was inaugurated into office on July
17, 2000 for a 7-year term.
2000 to 2007
Tensions between Syria and the United States intensified from late
2004 to 2007, primarily over issues relating to Iraq and Lebanon.
The U.S. Government recalled its Ambassador to Syria in February
2005, after the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Hariri.
Sensing its international isolation, the Syrians shored up their
relations with Iran and radical Palestinians groups based in
Damascus, and cracked down on any signs of internal dissent. There
has been little movement on political reform, with more public focus
on limited economic liberalizations. The Syrian Government has
provided some cooperation to the UN Independent International
Investigation Commission, headed by Serge Brammertz, which is
investigating the killing of Hariri. Since the 34-day conflict in
Lebanon in July and August 2006, evidence of Syrian compliance with
its obligations under UN Security Council Resolution 1701 not to
rearm the Lebanese group Hezbollah is unpersuasive. On April 17,
2007, the United Nations Security Council welcomed the Secretary
General's intention to evaluate the situation along the entire
Syria-Lebanon border and invited the Secretary General to dispatch
an independent mission to fully assess the monitoring of the border,
and to report back on its findings and recommendations. |
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