Hafez al-Assad

The new leadership appointed Hafez as the commander of the Syrian Air Force. In February 1966 Hafez participated in a second coup, which toppled the traditional leaders of the Ba'ath Party. Hafez was appointed defence minister by the new government. Four years later Hafez initiated a third coup, which ousted the de facto leader Salah Jadid, and appointed himself as leader of Syria. Hafez imposed various changes to the Ba'athist government when he took power. He subordinated state socialism for a mixed economic model and defended private property. Hafez also abandoned the rhetoric of exporting "socialist revolution" by strengthening Syria's foreign relations with countries that his predecessor had deemed reactionary. Hafez sided with the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War in return for support against Israel and, whilst he had forsaken the pan-Arab concept of unifying the Arab world into one Arab nation, he sought to paint Syria as the defender of the Palestinians against Israel.


When he came to power Hafez organised the state along sectarian lines. (Sunnis and non-Alawites became figure-heads of political institutions whilst the Alawites took control of the military, intelligence, bureaucracy and security apparatuses.) Ba'athist decision-making authority that had previously been collegial was reduced and given to the Syrian president. The Syrian government ceased to be a one-party system in the normal sense of the word and was turned into a one-party dictatorship with a strong presidency. To maintain this system, a cult of personality centred on Hafez and his family was created by the president and the Ba'ath party. The Assad family’s personality cult was integrated with the Ba’athist doctrine to shape the state's official ideology. Hafez ordered an intervention in Lebanon in 1976, which resulted in the Syrian occupation of Lebanon. During his rule Hafez crushed an Islamist uprising led by the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood rebels through a series of crackdowns culminating in the Hama massacre.


After consolidating his personal authority over the Syrian government Hafez began looking for a successor. His first choice was his brother Rifaat, but Rifaat attempted to seize power in 1983–1984 when Hafez's health was in doubt. Rifaat was subsequently exiled when Hafez's health recovered. Hafez's next choice of successor was his eldest son, Basil. However Basil died in a car accident in 1994 and Hafez turned to his third choice—his younger son Bashar, who at that time had 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 Hafez persisted with his plan and demoted officials who opposed this succession. Hafez died in 2000 and Bashar succeeded him as president. Under his rule the country would later collapse into civil war.