The doctor

Position: President of Syria

Age: 43 (born Sept. 11, 1965)

Parents: Former Syrian President Hafez al-Assad and Anisah Makhlouf

Wife and kids: Asma Fawaz Akhras, now Asma Al-Assad, 33, born in London, England, Aug. 11, 1975. Educated at Kings College, London, Asma previously worked as an analyst with Deutsche Bank and JP Morgan.

Education: Medicine, University of Damascus; ophthalmology residency, Military Hospital of Latakia; subspecialty training in ophthalmology, Western Eye Hospital, London.

Net worth: Unknown

AMMAN, Syria — Trained as an eye doctor, 43-year-old Syrian President Bashar al Assad was not his father’s first choice to succeed him as leader Syria.

His father, Hafez al Assad, took power in coup a bloodless coup in 1970. It followed the disaster of the 1967 six day war with Israel, in which Syria lost the Golan Heights. Hafez Al Assad had been a General in the Syrian Air Force at the time, later rising to Defense Minister. As President of Syria, he inherited a dictatorial regime and became head of the Arab Socialist Baath Party.

Havez’s eldest son, Basil, had been groomed to take over his father, but died in a car accident in 1994.

If his brother had not been killed, Bashar likely would have lived a quiet life away from politics. He studied ophthalmology between 1988 and 1992 in Syria. When his brother unexpectedly died, Bashar was studying in London.

Bashar was immediately called back to Syria and went through rigorous military and political training to groom him for the presidency. Upon his Father’s death in 2000, Bashar took power. His only previous public political experience had been running the Syrian Computer
Society.

In 2001, he married the British-born Asma Fawaz Akhras, whose family is originally from Syria. The couple now has two children.

The Assad’s are members of a minority spin-off of Islam, called Allawite, in the largely Sunni dominated Syria. Many Sunni Muslims consider Allawites to be heretics. This fact, and the history of repeated coups and countercoups, has kept the country under emergency law since the 1960’s. Syria is often criticized by Human Rights groups as being a police state.

The Assad family and their relatives occupy the most powerful positions in the Syrian government, intelligence service, military and business community.

The Baath party in Syria has created a cult of personality around the Assads. Bashar’s face is plastered everywhere in Syria, from car windows to traffic roundabouts. He profile is often accompanied by pictures of his late brother, Basil, and his father.

Since 2005, Bashar and his government have had to deal with international isolation by the U.S. and Europe. The U.S. has accused the Syrian government of facilitating travel for insurgents to Iraq, supporting U.S. labeled terrorist groups Hezbollah and Hamas, and Assad’s government has been blamed for ordering the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri in 2005. Syria denies any role.

But the country has recently come out of international isolation, in part because of Assad’s desire to recover the Israeli occupied Golan Heights.

Israel and Syria have been in a technical state of war since the Jewish state was founded in 1948. The two countries have engaged in armed conflict three times since then. Both Bashar and his father have said that the only way Syria would establish relations with Israel was if there were a complete return of the strategically important region. The most recent round of negotiations took place last year, with Turkey as mediator. 

“We still believe that we need to conclude a serious dialogue to lead us to peace,” Assad wrote in an email to New Yorker writer Seymour Hersh, published in the April 6, 2009 issue.

Recovering the Golan would cement Assad’s leadership in Syria, and recognition of Israel would bring his country closer to the West. Assad has also made some modest efforts to reform the centralized economy.

But looming large is the International Tribunal to find those responsible for assassinating Hariri. The court began operations earlier this year. Assad says Syria had no involvement in Hariri’s murder, however an initial UN reported pointed to Syrian complicity.

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