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This paper is an investigation into a triple homicide in the French Mandate of Syria in 1925. It first suggests that the official decision to single out the murder of three French land registry employees in the midst of the Great Syrian Revolt, a two-year war against French imperial rule, is revealing of the Mandate's attempts to legitimize its dominion over Syria. It then argues that the capacity in which the three slain agents operated, as employees tasked with the break-up of mushâ' properties, is central to their demise. Indeed the Mandate advertised the individualization of mushâ' holdings (based on a rotation of land use rights) as a rational measure meant to improve living standards in rural Syria. But Syrian rebels also perceived such interventions as an attempt by French authorities to circumvent the Mandate-imposed restrictions to their authority through the construction of what is here called 'material sovereignty.' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The absence of an internationally-mandated peace process for Syria has allowed the Syrian regime to embark on a post-conflict reconstruction process unperturbed by international norms and actors. The emergent illiberal peace in Syria extends the conditions of war and violence into the post-conflict period through the creation of new citizenship regimes that bifurcate Syrian society into the reconciled and settled, on the one hand, and the unsettled and cast out, on the other. The post-conflict citizenship regimes in Syria are generated through a series of new laws around property ownership, military desertion, absenteeism, and political amnesty that are informed by a discourse of abandonment, betrayal, and desertion that casts some Syrians as loyal and worthy of citizenship, and others as disloyal and worthy of being cast out of citizenship. The bifurcation of Syrian society into the loyal and disloyal occurs through government-led processes of 'reconciling' with former rebel fighters and 'settlement' with civilians. In both cases, fighters and civilians have to prove their loyalty to the homeland in order to secure an albeit precarious return to citizenship and rights. Those denied settlement or reconciliation are simply denied citizenship rights and legal identity in Syria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Russia has been accused of revisionism in its foreign policy, understood as an effort to undermine a 'rules-based' international order. This essay analyses the normative dimension of such revisionism. It examines Russian legal discourse in the period 2014–2019, based on case studies of Russian interventions in Ukraine and Syria. It finds little evidence of sustained Russian legal revisionism—an effort to modify international law—despite Russian assertion of legal exceptionalism in the CIS region. It confirms previous research that Russia has deployed legal rhetoric strategically and instrumentally. Moscow understands it cannot easily gain international support for new rules, yet still seems to aspire to revise the structure of regional power relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the approaches and challenges to Kurdish autonomy in Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. Accommodation of Kurdish rights via autonomy arrangements has a long history as an idea but negotiating actual autonomy agreements was often a fruitless task. However, the weakening of state power in Iraq since 1991 and in Syria since 2011 has created opportunities for Kurdish movements in these states to develop and consolidate their autonomous administrations. Consequently, in recent years, the debate on Kurdish autonomy in the Middle East has taken center stage in the regional political discourse. This article first discusses the literature on approaches to autonomy to set out the main models and assess their strengths and weaknesses. It then provides accounts of the models of autonomy that are either practiced or proposed by Kurdish actors or entities in Iraq, Turkey, and Syria. The final section assesses the ability and suitability of the proposed or practiced models for the accommodation of Kurdish rights and demands and develops insights into how the current difficulties preventing the accommodation of Kurdish rights in the Middle East may be overcome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the regional and international implications of peace in the Syrian Civil War, including in regard to Russia and Iran's support of the Syrian government under President Bashar al-Assad. An overview of the U.S.'s policy towards the Syrian Civil War, including former President Barack Obama's call for Assad to step down, is provided.

Taking Syria's armed conflict as a case study to illustrate the processes of normative contestation in international relations, this article is interested in re-examining the typology of Russia as a 'rising power' to account for 'rise' in a non-material dimension. The article integrates the concept of 'rising power' with the literature on international norm dynamics to reflect on the rationale for Russia's engagement in Syria despite adverse material preconditions. It will argue that Russian norm divergence from alleged 'Western' norms illustrates Moscow's ambition to co-define the conditions for legitimate transgressions of state sovereignty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Partnerships between organisations in humanitarian crisis situations generally are challenging, but at the apex are those established as part of remote management in a context of extreme insecurity. To date, little systematic research has been conducted on arrangements between local organisations that have access to crisis‐affected populations and international organisations that hold the purse strings. This paper presents the findings of nine months of qualitative research conducted with five Syrian local organisations and their international partners engaging in humanitarian action across the Turkey–Syria border, and presents insights into the components of successful partnerships. It redefines capacity along organisational and operational lines, and unpacks how monitoring and evaluation and donor requirements create tension and, at times, place local organisations at risk. The paper highlights the centrality of trust in successful partnerships, and describes the personalisation of the conflict by local organisations. Based on a historical case study of civil society in northern Iraq, it closes with some suggestions for long‐term sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on empirical material collected in Lebanon and Turkey in 2014 and 2016, this paper focuses on Syrian activists and social aid networks operating from exile from 2011 onwards. By paying attention to what these activists do and say, to their individual trajectories (namely during the 2011 period and the first months of popular protests), and to their immediate 'environment', I shed light on how they give meaning to their humanitarian activity and on how they relate to politics. I also explore the way in which activists explicitly and implicitly contribute to the changing political dynamics of the conflict, for instance by supporting and constructing Syrian (exiled, displaced and besieged) communities. In so doing, I illustrate how informal networks created in situations of uprising may find an exit strategy by institutionalizing themselves and how they adapt to a context of war characterized by fluidity, the sudden pluralization of the political arena and the need to negotiate space and resources with multiple 'players'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During crises, ideas play a decisive role in shaping radical paradigm shifts in economic governance. However, not all crises immediately produce such 'great transformations'. Why do some ideas result in incremental rather than abrupt change after crisis? To identify mechanisms potentially explaining this variation, I conduct an exploratory process tracing of an understudied case of incremental institutional change: post-independence Syria. Competing political actors in Syria converged on identical policy responses to crisis despite their very different interpretations of its causes. Although power oscillated between these increasingly bitter rivals in the early 1950s, their ideational consensus on economic issues nevertheless led to a decade of steady institutional change that transformed previously fragile government institutions into powerful vehicles of statism. I derive from this analysis the potential causal significance of two new variables - crisis narrative and crisis response - and hypothesise that their configuration can explain variation in post-crisis patterns of institutional change. Ideas can explain not only the new direction of economic governance after crisis, but also the speed and scale of its movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Civil war in Syria started in 2011 provide an important and rich area of investigation into the study of civil war. The present study is intended to concentrate on the cause of Syrian civil war. The main focus of the paper is on the investigation of why and how civil war in Syria was triggered. Despite the various ways in which Syrian civil war can be addressed, the paper benefited from good/ poor governance theoretical framework to investigate the cause of the civil war. The findings support the theoretical argument that poor governance has led to civil war in Syria. Governance indicators show lack of free and fair elections, low level of rule of law, high level of corruption, lack of voice and accountability, exclusion of different interest groups, inequity and government ineffectiveness in Syria which have been resulted in lasting civil war. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on laws governing decentralized reconstruction in Syria. Topics discussed include interplay of politics with reconstruction in the country; history of Syrian's Housing, Land and Property rights; and challenges and causes of the rapid urbanization and proliferation of informal housing.

The internal conflict in Syria and the legal imperatives of the 'Assad must go' doctrine have brought to the fore the issue of government legitimacy. This article examines the 'de-legitimisation/legitimisation process', meaning the denial of the legitimacy of a government from the perspective of the international community, in favor of the attribution of legitimacy to another entity. The main argument is that government legitimacy is determined on the basis of a combination of objective and legal criteria at the domestic and international level. When the objective criteria are contested by opposition forces to a significant extent, the international community needs to answer the question: who must be recognised as the legitimate government? Having set out the criteria for such a decision, I then examine the de-legitimisation of the Syrian government and the recognition of the Syrian National Coalition (SNC) as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people by regional organisations and by Member States of the UN. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article informs that U.S. has launched air strikes against a Syrian government Shayrat Airfield against chemical weapons attacks by Syrian Forces. Topics discussed include use of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant by Syrian against the U.S.; use of Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles by the U.S. naval for the same; and U.S. President Donald Trump's take on the same.

This paper is about how the Syrian government lost control over its rural and rural-to-urban constituents. From the twin perspective of ethnography and political economy, I show how the same pressures that structured men’s decisions to migrate from the countryside to sell labour power in the city resemble the material foundations for the uprising itself. The dominant narrative of the Syrian uprising is that protests calling for democracy were suppressed with violence, and with that the movement degraded into a sectarian civil and proxy war. Contra this narrative, I describe from a moment of cynicism expressed toward the Baʿth party’s official slogan how the government once relied not only on the ‘repressive apparatus of the state’, but also a politico-economic system that guarded against total impoverishment. Following liberalising reforms in the 1990s—deepened in the 2000s—this arrangement crumbled; agricultural input subsidies were stripped; food price capping was removed; guaranteed pricing on crops was cancelled; and import barriers fell. In attempting to answer challenges thrown up by Syria’s position within global capitalism, the government abandoned its welfare pact. In a context rapidly determined by accumulation by dispossession and mass impoverishment, Syria’s marginalised population vocalised chains of what Ernesto Laclau (2005.On Populist Reason. London: Verso) would recognise as ‘populist demands’. These demands were refused or responded to via transparent propaganda. Against a backdrop of uprisings across the Arab world, the Baʿth party’s remaining thread of a social contract snapped. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

On the 6th anniversary of the conflict in Syria, the Royal Institute of International Affairs, Chatham House, (London) produced a publications titled Western Policy Towards Syria: Applying Lessons Learned in March 2017. The report written by a team of writers of the Middle East and North Africa Programme state that western policy-makers must consider long-term solutions to a stable and effective governance in Syria. To do this policy-makers in western countries must close the gap between rhetoric and action and must have the vision to act. This should not necessarily be through military means but political and diplomatic efforts and incentives and economic development. The review article provides a summary of the full report that is scathing at times of western policy but provides a detailed situation of the conflict that unveiled in Syria since February 2011. This review as pointed out in the report shows there has been no political will on the part of western powers which has been beset by an absence of strategic vision and inability to adopt long-term solutions on the community and national state levels through top-down and bottom-up measures and establish parameters to form a baseline for policy development as the West must seek to craft a more effective strategy in dealing with the Syrian conflict. The Chatham makes no bones about the complexity of the conflict that developed into "multiple wars" warring parties, emergence of ISIS and other extreme groups fighting amidst civilian conurbations. But they stated also the West can no longer frame their policies in terms of counterterrorism but has to go beyond that through a political settlement, involving external actors such as Iran and Russia who are have directly become involved in the conflict; as well as Turkey and other Arab countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a reprint of the article "What Syrians Want" by Daniel Corstange, which appeared in the "Foreign Affairs" magazine. It discusses the Syrian public opinion on the dictatorship and five years of war in Syria. Most of Syrian refugees were found to be supporting the opposition and militant jihadi factions while majority of Sunni Arabs have split views on the government and opposition.

The article focuses on political sovereignty in Middle East and mentions violence in the region. Topics discussed include terror attacks, military interventions and civil wars in the region. Other topics which includes political situation in Syria and Iraq are also discussed. Sectarianism and militarization in the region are mentioned.

An essay is presented which provides information on the refugee crisis in Syria. Topics discussed include the results the Syrian civil war such as the death of about 400,000 Syrians and the use of Syria by terrorist groups as a base to expand in the Middle East, an estimated number of refugees produced by the war, and several options offered for handling the refugee crisis.

The article reconstructs a debate between Hanafi jurists who operated throughout Ottoman Greater Syria (and beyond) from the seventeenth to the early nineteenth centuries concerning the evidentiary status of the Ottoman imperial registers (defters). At the centre of the jurists' debate is the permissibility of using imperial registers as independent, uncorroborated evidence. It was a debate about who had the right to regulate and determine what constituted an authentic evidential document: while some jurists argued that it was almost exclusively the privilege of the jurists, others were willing to concede this authority, at least in part, to the Ottoman dynasty and its bureaucracy. Furthermore, the article contends that the debate about the evidentiary validity of the defters captures the complex relationship between Ottoman dynastic law and the Hanafi fiqh discourse. Finally, the debate sheds light on the legal "defterization" of other types of documents and texts, such as a chronicle (taʾrīkh) and court records (sijill). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study which examines the murder of Karā Kādī, an official of the Ottomon Impire, in Aleppo, Syria on April 24, 1528 and the struggle for justice in the early 16th century. It argues that the murder highlights the resistance to the Ottoman legitimacy. It looks at the detailed description of the murder in the biographical dictionary written by Allepine scholar Radī al-Dīn Muhammad Ibn al-Hanbalī.

The Syrian Muslim Brotherhood has been a key diplomatic player in the current Syrian uprising; a role that stands in stark contrast to its reputation among Western authors. This article argues that this chasm between the Brotherhood's practice and reputation is a legacy of the 1982 Hama massacre. The slaughter has become a "spectacle," as per the theory of Guy Debord, leading Hama to take on an exaggerated significance in portrayals of the Brotherhood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates coalition patterns between two main factions of the Syrian opposition before and after the 2011 uprising. The two factions united over common platforms on several occasions following the 2000 Damascus Spring, but failed to do so in 2011 despite repeated domestic and international pressure. Drawing upon two-level game theory to explain this change, this article argues that increased interest from both domestic and international audiences after 2011 made the two factions less flexible in negotiating a unified platform. Thus, paradoxically, it was increased pressure for unification that deterred the opposition factions from unifying. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper adopts a political economy approach to examine Syria’s foreign policy during the eventful rule of Husni al-Za′im in the immediate post-independence period. In this endeavour, Syria’s foreign policy objectives have been derived from the basic characteristics it shared with other states of the global South that came to independent statehood with varying degrees of underdevelopment, dependence, vulnerability and permeability. Hence, the acquisition of foreign economic resources has been considered alongside the objectives of independence/autonomy and leadership maintenance/regime consolidation. The contention of this paper is that the interaction of these objectives as a complex process involving trade-offs is worth pursuing because it provides fundamental insights into a state’s foreign policy and contributes to its understanding. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the extent to which formal logic can be applied to conflict analysis and resolution. It is motivated by the idea that conflicts can be understood as inconsistent sets of interests. Design/methodology/approach – A simple propositional model, based on propositional logic, which can be used to analyze conflicts, has been introduced and four algorithms have been presented to generate possible solutions to a conflict. The model is illustrated by applying it to the conflict between the Obama administration and the Syrian Government in September 2013 over the destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons programme. Findings – The author shows how different solutions, such as compromises, minimally invasive solutions or solutions compatible with certain pre-defined norms, can be generated by the model. It is shown how the model can operate in situations where the game-theoretic model fails due to a lack of information about the parties’ utility values. Research limitations/implications – The model can be used as a theoretical framework for future experimental research and/or to trace the course of particular conflict scenarios. Practical implications – The model can be used as the basis for building software applications for conflict resolution practitioners, such as negotiators or mediators. Originality/value – While the idea of using logic to analyse the structure of conflicts and generate possible solutions is not new to the field of conflict studies, the model presented in this paper provides a novel way of understanding conflicts for both researchers and practitioners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines Iraqi political developments in the last few years. It argues that unless a constitutional mechanism for proper dispersal of political powers across Iraq's regions and branches of its government is developed quickly, it may become too late for defeating Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, stemming the sectarian and ethnic conflicts, overcoming its perpetual crises of governance or for keeping Iraq united. We suggest that a confederal structure is a better and lasting political solution for Iraq than federal or other structural configurations. We also argue that power-sharing and consensus must be intertwined directly into the constitutional fabric of the political structure. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses political, social and military developments in Syria as of December 2015. It claims that the revolution in Syria was influenced by the Arab uprisings that also affected such countries as Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt, political repression, and worsening socioeconomic standards. Also examined is how the protests in Syria have turned into civil war.

This article examines the phenomenon of minoritarian regimes in the Middle East, focusing on Bahrain, Syria and Israel/Palestine. It considers, in each, how minority rule was established, the mechanisms through which it is maintained, and the means through which it is legitimated. Although these regimes are not typically analyzed as a category, they have important features in common. In all three, the state's political and security institutions are controlled by members of an ethnic/religious group that is a numerical minority in the country, at the expense of a majority group with a competing claim to indigeneity. While the legal and political mechanisms that these regimes use to restrict access to power vary, they employ similar strategies for legitimating minority rule, presenting democracy as a threat not only to the regime's survival, but also to the security of the group whose interests it claims to represent. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article focuses on the crisis faced by Syria following the Syrian War dealing with the displacement of several civilians, Syrian foreign policies, and the role of U.S. in the Syrian war against the Islamic State (IS). Topics include crisis faced by U.S. government as they combated the IS, political regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and role of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The article focuses on U.S. diplomatic policies to combat IS to prevent acts of terrorism by the IS. The article talks about U.S. humanitarian efforts to resolve conflict in Syria, Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran, and the stability of Oil prices.

The article focuses on U.S. government's role in the screening of the film "This Is Cinerama" focusing on the links between politics, technology, and cultural representation with U.S. public diplomacy. Topics include U.S. Cold War strategy, post-war situation and politics in Syria, and U.S. relations with the Soviet Union. The role of U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower is mentioned. The article also discusses the United States Information Service (USIS).

A personal narrative is presented in which the author talks about his trip to Syria, his meet with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in February 2015, and the need to change the France's foreign policy.

The Arab Spring offered Kurdish political actors in the region significant opportunities to advance their goals. Particularly in Syria and Iraq, Kurdish parties took advantage of the weakening of central governments there. The Kurdish political movement in Turkey, along with its sister movement in Syria, has likewise used the struggle against the "Islamic State" to gain a lot of international sympathy and even support. At the same time, instability in the region has brought increased immediacy to the very real threats faced by Kurdish political actors, whether from hostile central governments or groups such as ISIL. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Syrian conflict that broke out in March 2011 seems to not end anytime soon. For various reasons, the efforts of the international community to stop the civil war have not been successful. The Assad regime, still supported by Russia and Iran, even if has lost more and more ground against opposition forces, including the access to oil resources, is not willing to cede power. The state of insecurity and dissatisfaction in the region has increased the influence of radical Islamic groups, such as the Islamic State. In all this time, the socio-economic situation and the environment have deteriorated continously. Nearly half of the population is displaced within or outside the country, living in poverty, many settlements are in ruins, and public services are not functional. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The late 1950s was a turbulent period in the history of Arab nationalism. It saw the birth and demise of unity states (the United Arab Republic and the Arab Union), civil war, revolution and Western intervention. Despite its short five-month lifespan, the Iraqi–Jordanian Hashemite Arab Union contributed to the intensification of the traditional Egyptian–Iraqi rivalry, the overthrow of the Iraqi monarchy in 1958 and the American intervention in Lebanon the same year. It was the result of Arab nationalism, lingering British imperial dreams, the East–West conflict, economic considerations and an inter-Arab cold war. The Arab Union had obvious advantages over the United Arab Republic. Two such advantages were the greater number of cabinet posts granted to Jordan by the Arab Union than were granted to Syria by the United Arab Republic, and the fact that Amman retained its status as capital (one of two union capitals), whereas Damascus was downgraded to the status of provincial capital. These advantages, however, failed to prevent the premature demise of the union, which was caused by a combination of negative domestic and regional perceptions, economic constraint and military commitments. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This conclusion summarizes the evidence explaining the divergent trajectories taken by post Arab uprising states in terms of multiple variables, each illustrated by an iconic case, namely: State Failure and Competitive governance (Syria), Regime Restoration and Hybrid Governance (Egypt) and Polyarchic Governance (Tunisia). Factors include the starting point: levels of opposition mobilization and regimes' resilience – a function of their patrimonial-bureaucratic balance; whether or not a transition coalition forms is crucial for democratization prospects. Context also matters for democratization, particularly political economic factors, such as a balance of class power and a productive economy; political culture (level of societal identity cleavages) and a minimum of international intervention. Finally, the balance of agency between democracy movements, Islamists, the military and workers shapes democratization prospects. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article intervenes into an ongoing debate on authoritarian regimes in the Arab world following the uprisings of 2011, in particular addressing the perceived failure of those uprisings to bring about “transition” to liberal democratic models. Drawing upon the method of comparative historical sociology used in seminal analyses of democratization and dictatorship in Europe, Asia and the Americas, the article seeks to explain the varying trajectories of the Arab Uprising states in terms of several structural factors, namely the balance of class forces, the relative autonomy of the state and the geo-political context. The article provides an empirical comparison of the cases of Egypt, Tunisia and Syria as points on a continuum of outcomes following the Arab uprising. The article mounts a critique of the absence of class analysis in mainstream transition theory and hypothesises instead an important role for workers’ movements in bringing about even basic elements of liberal democracy. The empirical comparison is shown to support this hypothesis, demonstrating that in Tunisia, the state where the worker's movement was strongest a constitutional settlement has been reached while Syria, the state with the weakest and least independent workers’ movement has descended into counter-revolution and civil war: the case of Egypt lying between these two poles. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article contributes to debates that aim to go beyond the “democratization” and “post-democratization” paradigms to understand change and continuity in Arab politics. In tune with calls to focus on the actualities of political dynamics, the article shows that the literatures on State Formation and Contentious Politics provide useful theoretical tools to understand change/continuity in Arab politics. It does so by examining the impact of the latest Arab uprisings on state formation trajectories in Iraq and Syria. The uprisings have aggravated a process of regime erosion – which originated in post-colonial state-building attempts – by mobilizing sectarian and ethnic identities and exposing the counties to geo-political rivalries and intervention, giving rise to trans-border movements, such as ISIS. The resulting state fragmentation has obstructed democratic transition in Syria and constrained its consolidation in Iraq. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Scholars working in the transitology tradition assume that authoritarian breakdown leads to movement towards democratization after an initial period of uncertainty. If a transition falls short of democratization, there is an assumption that a return to authoritarian normalcy has transpired. Yet, whether one looks at Egypt, Libya, Syria, or Bahrain, the emergent trend is neither democratization, a return to the old authoritarian order, or a delayed transition. Rather, the weakening and fragmenting of regimes by popular mobilizations stimulated elites’ militarization of the state apparatus and unprecedented levels of state violence against ordinary citizens in a process of regime re-making. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article challenges the sectarian narrative of Syria’s current civil war, which relies on several false assumptions about the nature of political identity. It first questions how sectarian the uprising and civil war actually are, suggesting that the conflict is ‘semi-sectarian’, given the multiple other fault lines of contention, notably class, ideology and other non-sect, sub-state ties. It then draws on the theoretical debates between primordialists, ethno-symbolists and modernists to historicise political identity development in Syria. In doing so, it reasserts the modernist case, emphasising how political identities in Syria, both national and sectarian, have developed in a complex interrelated manner in the modern era and how the recent violent mobilisation of sectarian identity is the result of long- and short-term structural, economic, socio-cultural and political factors rather than unchanging ancient animosities. Of these, the most vital remain structural changes and elite reactions to them, with the prospect of state collapse in Syria’s future the most likely cause of a descent into further sectarian chaos. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The story of Syria's first president Mohammad Ali al-Abed is not told in Syrian history books, for a variety of reasons. One is the drama of Syrian history after 1936, when he stepped down. Another is the fact that he came to power with French blessing, making him an easy target for the National Bloc, which dominated Syrian public life from 1936 until 1958. When the Ba'athists came to power in 1963, they systematically excised entire sections of modern Syrian history; anything that came before the socialist revolution, they claimed, was capitalistic, imperialistic, elitist, backward, and ultimately wrong. Any praise of Abed, or his generation of Syrian nationalists, tended to result in harassment by the security services, or jail. As a result, four generations grew up in Ba'athist Syria knowing of no other president than Hafez al-Assad. This article tries to remedy this by shedding light on the career of a forgotten president from pre-Baath Syria. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]