Results for “Hafez al-Assad”

11 support is also building up for creating havens for Syrian refugees in Turkey, Lebanon, Iraq and Jordan. Moscow had also expressed concern that, with Assad’s demise, a new Syrian government might “ignore Russia’s interests in the Middle East.” Since the vetoes, however, the...

/ BARAK / 41 control of something like 40 percent of the West Bank. That meant — at least in theory — that Israel could limit phase-three to a mere token pullout, leaving the Palestinians with less than half of the territory. “T don’t know what percentage, exactly,” I replied....

/ BARAK / 79 Syrians. Then to Geneva to see Assad, “where I felt like a wooden Indian, doing your bidding. I will not let it happen here. I will simply not do it.” I tried to keep my voice steady when I replied. I explained that the issues we were addressing went to the heart o...

what could he do that would deter a regime in a fight for its life? Pull U.S. Ambassador Robert Ford from Damascus? Impose a travel ban on Assad and his family? Press the Europeans to freeze Assad's money?

the Obama administration is worried about creating a worse situation if Assad falls. Take your pick of scary scenarios: civil war

that the countdown to the end of Syria's Assad regime

Bashar al-Assad had little or nothing of the menacing pose of a traditional Arab dictator. His manner was modest and

the foreign ministers of Iran and Russia (the closest allies of the al-Assad regime) seem to have agreed to help

which I knew Assad had said he considered rightfully Syrian during talks

“‘if all my needs are met.”’ Meaning that if Assad showed a

until well into the autumn of 1999 President Assad was holding firm on

the focus did finally shift to the Syrians. President Assad suddenly

he could phone Assad and tell him that I had

I saw no reason not to do this. If only because of Assad’s failing health

/ BARAK / 44 Western envoys who had seen the Syrian president, that Assad’s many years of health problems had left him almost skeletally frail, even at times disoriented. Even my own negotiating team urged me to concentrate on the Palestinians instead. President Clinton kept st...