Book Review: Power and Policy in Syria

Entry Excerpt:

Power and Policy in Syria: The Intelligence Services, Foreign Relations, and Democracy in the Modern Middle East
by Radwan Ziadeh.
Published by I.B. Tauris, New York. 219 pages, 2011.
Reviewed by CDR Youssef Aboul-Enein, MSC, USN

Radwan Ziadeh is an academic who teaches at Harvard and George Washington University. His current book is a nuanced look at the methods by which the current Syrian regime maintains a monopoly hold on power. The book opens with Syrian independence from French colonial rule in 1946. It discusses the stressors of that period that led to the creation of more radical political parties, successive government collapses (in 1954 four governments were formed and collapsed, and the grip of ideological thinking as well as dogmatism to cope with this instability. Ziadeh offers an interesting observation of Syrian political history, dividing its period into three republics (formation in 1946, unification with Egypt in 1958, and the revolutionary state 1963 to the present). The author is able to tie together strands of political history from an Arab and Syrian perspective, which makes the volume useful for Foreign Area Officer, and those analyzing Syria within the intelligence community and United States Central Command. It lays out the birth and evolution of the different organs of the security apparatus, which now exceeds 700,000 operatives in 2004.



--------
Read the full post and make any comments at the SWJ Blog.
This forum is a feed only and is closed to user comments.