Topic- Instability and external involvement in Syria · Hafez al-Assad, father of the current President of Syria Bashar al-Assad was from, the Alawi minority, a heterodox Shia sect, that had long been persecuted in Syria and came to power under the post–World War I French mandate. He took control over Syria from the Baathist military junta in 1970 and put majority of the powers in the presidency. · In February 1982, Hafez al-Assad ordered the military to put down a Muslim Brotherhood uprising in the city of Hama with brute force. Syrian forces killed more than twenty-five thousand there. Hama b ecame a rallying point during the Protest since 2011. The Assad presided over a system that was not just autocratic but kleptocratic, doling out patronage to bind Syrians to the regime. · Bashar al-Assad succeeded his father in 2000 pledging reforms. He promised to let markets take the place of the ‘Arab socialism’ put by the previous regimes. The privatization
