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In June 2000, after years of
failing health, President Assad died. Having fallen out with his
brother, Rifaat, some years earlier, and with the accidental death
of his eldest son, Basil, in 1994, Assad had selected
his second son, Bashar, as
heir. While domestic policy has seen something of a relaxation under
Bashar, Western hopes that the Syrian Arab Republic would pursue a
more pro-Western line have proved misguided – in the vocabulary of
the US Bush administration, the Syrian Arab Republic is a ‘state of
concern’ (one level below the ‘axis of evil’). The Syrians have
provided some assistance to the Western ‘War Against Terror’ but
were strongly opposed to the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq in
2003.
Syria pulled its forces out of Lebanon in 2005, after coming under
intense international pressure following a UN report that implicated
the Syrian Arab Republic in the assassination of former Premier of
Lebanon, Rafik Hariri. Both Syria and pro-Syria Lebanese officials
were thought to be involved, although this has been strongly denied
by Damascus.
The 1973 constitution allows for a single-chamber legislature, the
250-member People’s Assembly. Executive power is vested in the
President who is directly elected for a seven-year term. | 
