Barbara Walters
Barbara Walters in New York City, June 2011
Born	Barbara Jill Walters (1929-09-25) September 25, 1929 (age 82) Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
Occupation	Journalist
Years active	1961–present
Notable credit(s)	Co-anchor and contributor of ABC Evening News and ABC World News Today show anchor (1961–1976) Not For Women Only host (1971–1976) ABC Evening News anchor (1976–1978) 20/20 host (1984–2004) The View creator/co-host (1997–present)
Salary	$12 million (2007)[1]
Spouse	Robert Henry Katz (m.1955–1958; annulled) Lee Guber (m.1963–1976; divorced) Merv Adelson (m.1981–1984; divorced) Merv Adelson (m.1986–1992; divorced)
Children	1

Barbara Jill Walters^[2] (born September 25, 1929) is an American broadcast journalist, author, and television personality. She has hosted morning television shows (Today and The View), the television news magazine (20/20), former co-anchor of the ABC World News, and current contributor to ABC News.

Walters was first known as a popular TV morning news anchor for over 10 years on NBC's Today, where she worked with Hugh Downs and later hosts Frank McGee and Jim Hartz. Walters later spent 25 years as co-host of ABC's news magazine 20/20. She was the first female co-anchor of network evening news, working with Harry Reasoner on the ABC Evening News, and continuing as a contributor to the network news division and its flagship program, ABC World News.

In 1996, Walters was ranked #34 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time.^[3]

Early life[link]

Walters was born in 1929 in Boston, the daughter of Dena (née Seletsky) and Louis "Lou" Walters (born Louis Warmwater).^[4] Her parents were both Jewish^[5] and descendants of refugees from the former Russian Empire, now Eastern Europe.^[6] Walters' paternal grandfather, Abraham Isaac, was from what is now Łódź, Poland, and first immigrated to England, changing his name first to Warmwater and later to Abraham Walters (the original family surname was Waremwasser).^[6][7][8] Walters' father was born there c. 1894, and moved to the United States with his family in 1900.^[9] In 1937, her father opened the New York version of the Latin Quarter; he also worked as a Broadway producer (he produced the Ziegfeld Follies of 1943).^[10][11] He also was the Entertainment Director for the Tropicana Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, where he imported the "Folies Bergere" stage show from Paris to the resort's main showroom.^[12] Walters' brother, Burton, died in 1932 of pneumonia.^[13] Walters' elder sister, Jacqueline, was born mentally disabled^[14] and died of ovarian cancer in 1985. She has another half sister, Walda Walters Anderson, born to a different mother.^{[citation needed]}

According to Walters, being surrounded by celebrities when she was young kept her from being "in awe" of them.^[14] When she was a young woman, Walters' father lost his nightclubs and the family's penthouse on Central Park West. As Walters recalled, "He had a breakdown. He went down to live in our house in Florida, and then the Government took the house, and they took the car, and they took the furniture." Of her mother, she said, "My mother should have married the way her friends did, to a man who was a doctor or who was in the dress business."^[15]

After attending Ethical Culture Fieldston School and Birch Wathen Lenox School^[16][17] private schools in New York City,^[13] Walters graduated from Miami Beach High School in 1947. In 1951 she received a B.A. in English from Sarah Lawrence College.^[18]

Career and accolades[link]

From left: Gene Shalit, Barbara Walters, and Frank McGee in The Today Show, 1973.

After a brief period as a publicist with Tex McCrary Inc. and a job as a writer at CBS News, Walters joined NBC's The Today Show as a writer and researcher in 1961.^[14] She moved up to become that show's regular "Today Girl", handling lighter assignments and the weather. In her autobiography, she describes this era before the Women's Movement as a time when it was believed that nobody would take a woman seriously reporting "hard news". Previous "Today Girls" (whom Walters called "tea pourers") included Florence Henderson, Helen O'Connell, Estelle Parsons and Lee Meriwether.^[19] Within a year she had become a reporter-at-large developing, writing, and editing her own reports and interviews.^[14] When Frank McGee was named host, he refused to do joint interviews with Walters unless he was given the first four questions. She was not named co-host of the show until McGee's death in 1974, when NBC officially designated Walters as the program's first female co-host.

Walters has seldom minced words when describing the visible, on-the-air disdain her co-anchor, Harry Reasoner, displayed for her when she was teamed up with him on the ABC Evening News in 1976–78. Reasoner had a difficult relationship with Walters because he disliked having a co-anchor, even though he worked with former CBS colleague Howard K. Smith nightly on ABC for several years. In 1981, five years after the start of their short-lived ABC partnership and well after Reasoner returned to CBS News, Walters and her former co-anchor had a memorable (and cordial) 20/20 interview on the occasion of Reasoner's new book release.^{[citation needed]}

Walters is also known for her years on the ABC newsmagazine 20/20 where she joined host Hugh Downs in 1979.^[14] Throughout her career at ABC, Walters has appeared on ABC news specials as a commentator, including presidential inaugurations and the coverage of 9/11. She was also chosen to be the moderator for the third and final debate between candidates Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford, held on the campus of the College of William and Mary at Phi Beta Kappa Memorial Hall in Williamsburg, Virginia, during the 1976 Presidential Election.^[20] In 1984, she moderated a Presidential debate held at the Dana Center for the Humanities at Saint Anselm College in Goffstown, New Hampshire.^[21] Many of her regular and special programs are syndicated around the world. As of 2004, she is in semi-retirement as a broadcast journalist, but remains a correspondent for ABC News as well as a host of ABC's special programs.

Awards[link]

On June 14, 2007, Walters received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She has won Daytime and Prime Time Emmy Awards, a Women in Film Lucy Award, and a GLAAD Excellence in Media award. Her impact on the popular culture is illustrated by Gilda Radner's "Baba Wawa" impersonation of her on Saturday Night Live,^[14] featuring her idiosyncratic speech with its rounded "R". In 2008, she was honored with the Disney Legends award, an award given to those who made an outstanding contribution to The Walt Disney Company, which owns the network ABC. That same year, she received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the New York Women's Agenda. On September 21, 2009, Walters was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 30th Annual News and Documentary Emmy Awards at New York City's Lincoln Center.

Interviews[link]

Walters interviewing President Gerald Ford and Betty Ford in 1976.

Vladimir Putin giving an interview to Walters in 2001 at the Kremlin.

On March 7, 2010, Barbara Walters announced she would no longer hold Oscar interviews, but will still be working with ABC and on her show, The View.^[22]

In a November 2010 episode of The View, while interviewing Larry King on his retirement from CNN, Walters alluded to her impending retirement, stating, "I know when my time's coming."

Walters is known for "personality journalism" and her "scoop" interviews.^[14] In November 1977, she achieved a joint interview with Egypt's President, Anwar Al Sadat, and Israel's Prime Minister, Menachem Begin. Her interviews with world leaders from all walks of life are a chronicle of the latter part of the 20th century.^[14] They include the Shah of Iran Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and his wife the Empress Farah Pahlavi; Russia's Boris Yeltsin; China's Jiang Zemin; the UK's Margaret Thatcher; Cuba's Fidel Castro, as well as India's Indira Gandhi, Václav Havel, Muammar al-Gaddafi, King Hussein of Jordan, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, Bashar al-Assad president of Syria among many others. Other interviews with influential people include pop icon Michael Jackson, Katharine Hepburn, Anna Wintour, and in 1980 Laurence Olivier. Walters considered Dr. Robert Smithdas, a deaf-blind man who spent his life improving the life of other individuals who are deaf-blind, as her most inspirational interview.

Walters was widely lampooned in 1981 (and often since) for having posed the question, during an interview with actress Katharine Hepburn: "If you were a tree, what kind would you be?" But as she has often pointed out (and the video clips confirm) Hepburn initiated the discussion by saying that she would like to be a tree, and Walters merely followed up with the question, "What kind of a tree?"^[14][23]

During a story about Cuban leader Fidel Castro, Walters claimed that "for Castro, freedom begins with education." Some critics^[who?] point to her characterization of Castro as freedom-loving and argue that it painted an inaccurate picture of his government.^{[citation needed]}

On March 3, 1999, her interview of Monica Lewinsky was seen by a record 74 million viewers, the highest rating ever for a journalist's interview. Walters asked Lewinsky, "What will you tell your children about this matter?" and Lewinsky replied, "I guess Mommy made some mistakes," at which point Walters brought the program to a dramatic conclusion, turning to the viewers, saying, "And that is the understatement of the year."

[edit] The View

Walters is a part-time host of the daytime talk show The View, of which she is also co-creator and co-executive producer with her business partner Bill Geddie.^[14] Walters described the show in its original opening credits as a forum for women of "different generations, backgrounds, and views." She added, "Be careful what you wish for..." The show's current co-hosts are Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar, Elisabeth Hasselbeck and Sherri Shepherd. Previous co-hosts include Meredith Vieira, Lisa Ling, Rosie O'Donnell, Star Jones, and Debbie Matenopoulos.

In 2007 Barbara defended co-host O'Donnell about remarks the latter made against Donald Trump and the winner of the Miss USA pageant. Trump firmly responded by saying, "Barbara is off the list..."^[24]

Personal life[link]

Walters has been married four times to three different men. "I'm convinced that you stay married when the sex is bad, only because you really want to be," she told The New York Times in 1996. "But I always had an out. I had this job, and this life and enough money. I didn't have to fight the bad days."^[15] Her husbands were:

• Robert Henry Katz, a business executive and former Navy lieutenant. They married on June 20, 1955, at The Plaza Hotel in New York City. The marriage was reportedly annulled in 1958.^[2][25]
• Lee Guber, theatrical producer and theater owner. They married on December 8, 1963, and divorced in 1976. They have one daughter, Jacqueline Dena Guber (born 1968, adopted the same year).
• Merv Adelson, the CEO of Lorimar Television. They married in 1981 and divorced in 1984 and were married again on May 10, 1986, and divorced in 1992.

She dated gay lawyer^[26][27] Roy Cohn in college, and the lawyer said that he proposed marriage to Walters the night before her wedding to Lee Guber, but Walters denied this.^[13] She explained her lifelong devotion to Cohn as gratitude for his help in her adoption of her daughter, Jacqueline.^[28] In her autobiography, Walters says that Cohn got her father's warrant for "failure to appear" dismissed.^[29]

Walters dated future U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan in the 1970s,^[30] and was linked romantically to United States Senator John Warner in the 1990s.^[31]

In Walters's autobiography, Audition, she claimed that she had an affair in the 1970s with Edward Brooke, then a married United States Senator from Massachusetts. It is not clear whether Walters also was married at the time. Walters said that the affair ended to protect their careers from scandal.^[32]

She announced on the May 10, 2010 episode of The View, that she would be undergoing open heart surgery to replace a faulty aortic valve. Walters added that she knew for quite a while that she was suffering from aortic valve stenosis, even though she was symptom-free. The procedure to fix the faulty heart valve "went well, and the doctors are very pleased with the outcome," Walters' spokeswoman, Cindi Berger, said in a statement on May 14, 2010.^[33]

On July 9, 2010, it was announced that Walters would return to The View and her Sirius XM satellite show Here's Barbara in September 2010.^[34][35]

Walters has been close friends with Fox News head Roger Ailes since the late 1960s.^[36]

Books[link]

In the late 1960s, Walters wrote a magazine article, How to Talk to Practically Anyone About Practically Anything, which drew upon the kinds of things people said to her, which were often mistakes.^[37] Shortly after the article appeared, she received a letter from Doubleday expressing interest in expanding it into a book. Walters felt that it would help "tongue-tied, socially awkward people — the many people who worry that they can't think of the right thing to say to start a conversation."^[37] She published the book in 1970, with the assistance of ghostwriter June Callwood.^[38] To Walters' great surprise, the book was a phenomenon. As of 2008, it had gone through eight printings, sold hundreds of thousands of copies worldwide, and had been translated into at least 6 different languages.^[37]

In 2008, she published her autobiography, Audition: A Memoir.

Awards and nominations[link]

Daytime Emmy Awards

• 1975 Award for Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Talk Show Host (Today)
• 1998 Nomination for Best Talk Show (The View)
• 1998 Nomination for Best Talk Show Host (The View)
• 1999 Nomination for Best Talk Show (The View)
• 1999 Nomination for Best Talk Show Host (The View)
• 2000 Nomination for Best Talk Show (The View)
• 2000 Nomination for Best Talk Show Host (The View)
• 2001 Nomination for Best Talk Show (The View)
• 2001 Nomination for Best Talk Show Host (The View)
• 2002 Nomination for Best Talk Show (The View)
• 2002 Nomination for Best Talk Show Host (The View)
• 2003 Award for Best Talk Show (The View)
• 2003 Nomination for Best Talk Show Host (The View)
• 2004 Nomination for Best Talk Show (The View)
• 2004 Nomination for Best Talk Show Host (The View)
• 2005 Nomination for Best Talk Show (The View)
• 2005 Nomination for Best Talk Show Host (The View)
• 2006 Nomination for Best Talk Show (The View)
• 2006 Nomination for Best Talk Show Host (The View)
• 2007 Nomination for Best Talk Show (The View)
• 2007 Nomination for Best Talk Show Host (The View)
• 2008 Nomination for Best Talk Show (The View)
• 2008 Nomination for Best Talk Show Host (The View)
• 2009 Award for Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Talk Show Host (The View) (with Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar, Elisabeth Hasselbeck and Sherri Shepherd)
• 2010 Nomination for Best Talk Show Host (The View)

NAACP Image Award

• 2009 Award for Best Talk Series (The View)
• 2010 Nomination for Best Talk Series

Women in Film Crystal + Lucy Award

• 1998 Lucy Award in recognition of her excellence and innovation in her creative works that have enhanced the perception of women through the medium of television.^[39]

See also[link]

	Biography portal
	Journalism portal

• Barbara Walters' 10 Most Fascinating People

References[link]

External links[link]

Find more about Barbara Walters on Wikipedia's sister projects:
	Definitions and translations from Wiktionary
	Images and media from Commons
	Learning resources from Wikiversity
	News stories from Wikinews
	Quotations from Wikiquote
	Source texts from Wikisource
	Textbooks from Wikibooks

• Barbara Walters at the Internet Movie Database
• ABC News' "Time Tunnel" page containing clips of numerous newscasts on which Walters appeared
• Excerpts from 2008 autobiography, Audition: A Memoir
• Barbara Walters Archive of American Television Interview

Bashar al-Assad بشار حافظ الأسد
President of Syria
Incumbent
Assumed office 17 July 2000
Prime Minister	Muhammad Mustafa Mero Muhammad Naji al-Otari Adel Safar
Vice President	Farouk al-Sharaa Najah al-Attar
Preceded by	Abdul Halim Khaddam (Acting)
Secretary of the Syrian Regional Command of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party
Incumbent
Assumed office 20 June 2000
Deputy	Mohammed Saeed Bekheitan
Preceded by	Hafez al-Assad
Personal details
Born	Bashar Hafez al-Assad (1965-09-11) 11 September 1965 (age 46) Damascus, Syria
Political party	Syrian-led Ba'ath Party (Syrian branch: NPF)
Spouse(s)	Asma al-Akhras
Alma mater	Damascus University
Profession	Ophthalmologist
Religion	Alawi Shia Islam[1]
Website	The President

Bashar Hafez al-Assad (Arabic: بشار حافظ الأسد‎, Baššār al-ʾAsad, ‎‎‎Arabic pronunciation: [bæʃˈʃɑːɾɪlˈʔæsæd])‎; born 11 September 1965) is the current President of Syria and Regional Secretary of the Syrian-led branch of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party. His father Hafez al-Assad ruled Syria for 29 years until his death in 2000.

Al-Assad graduated from the medical school of the University of Damascus in 1988, and started to work as a doctor in the army. Four years later, he attended postgraduate studies at the Western Eye Hospital, in London, specializing in ophthalmology. In 1994, Al-Assad entered the military academy and in 1998, Al-Assad took charge of the Syrian occupation of Lebanon. In December 2000, Assad married Asma Assad, née Akhras. Al-Assad was elected as President of Syria in 2000 and 2007, unopposed each time.^[2][3] During the Syrian uprising, activists and protesters have called for President al-Assad's resignation.^[4]

Early life[link]

Bashar Hafez al-Assad was born in Damascus on 11 September 1965, the son of Aniseh (née Makhluf) and Hafez al-Assad.^[5] His father, Hafez al-Assad, born to a poor family of Alawite background, had risen through the Party ranks, to take control of the Syrian-led branch of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party in the 1970 Corrective Revolution, thus installing himself as president. Hafez al-Assad purged the Party, and introduced effective Alawite rule of Syria.^[5][6]

Unlike his brothers, Bassel and Maher, and sister, Bushra, Bashar was quiet and reserved and says that he lacked interest in politics or the military.^[7] He later said that he only entered his father's office once while he was in power and he never spoke about politics with him.^[8] He received his primary and secondary education in the Arab-French al-Hurriya School in Damascus^[7] and was an exemplary student.^[9] In 1982, he graduated from high school and went on to study medicine at Damascus University.^[9]

In 1988, Bashar Assad graduated from medical school and began working as an army doctor in the biggest military hospital, "Tishrin", on the outskirts of Damascus.^[10][11] Four years later, he went to the United Kingdom to begin postgraduate training in ophthalmology at the Western Eye Hospital, part of the St Mary's group of teaching hospitals in London.^[12] Bashar at the time had few political aspirations.^[13] His father had been grooming Bashar's older brother, Bassel al-Assad, as the future president, but never openly declaring this intent.^[14] Bashar, however, was recalled in 1994 to the Syrian army, after Bassel's unexpected death in an automobile accident.^[12]

Death of Bassel[link]

The Al-Assad family around 1994. At the front are Hafez al-Assad and his wife, Anisa. At the back row, from left to right: Maher (commander of the Republican Guard), Bashar, Bassel, Majid, and Bushra

Soon after the death of Bassel, Hafez Assad made the decision to make Bashar the new heir-apparent.^[15] Over the next six and half years, until his death in 2000, Hafez went about systematically preparing Bashar for taking over power. Preparations for a smooth transition were made on three levels. First, support was built up for Bashar in the military and security apparatus. Second, Bashar's image was established with the public. And lastly, Bashar was familiarized with the mechanisms of running the country.^[16]

To establish his credentials in the military, Bashar entered in 1994 the military academy at Homs, north of Damascus, and was propelled through the ranks to become a colonel in January 1999.^[10][17][18] To establish a power base for Bashar in the military, old divisional commanders were pushed into retirement, and new, young, Alawite officers with loyalties to him took their place.^[19] Parallel to his military career, Bashar was engaged in public affairs. He was granted wide powers and became a political adviser to President Hafez al-Assad, head of the bureau to receive complaints and appeals of citizens, and led a campaign against corruption. As a result of his campaign against corruption, Bashar was able to remove his potential rivals for president.^[10]

In 1998, Bashar took charge of Syria's Lebanon file, which had since the 1970s been handled by former Vice President Abdul Khaddam, one of the few Sunni officials in the Assad government, who had until then been a potential contender for president.^[19] By taking charge of Syrian affairs in Lebanon, Bashar was able to push Khaddam aside and establish his own power base in Lebanon.^[20] In that same year after minor consultation with Lebanese politicians, Bashar installed Emile Lahoud, a loyal ally of his, as the President of Lebanon and pushed former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri aside, by not placing his political weight behind his nomination as prime minister.^[21] To further weaken the old Syrian order in Lebanon, Bashar replaced the long serving de facto Syrian High Commissioner of Lebanon, Ghazi Kanaan, with loyal ally Rustum Ghazali.^[22] Under Bashar, Syrian corruption in Lebanon, which was already estimated at $2 billion per year in the 1990s,^[23] became more rampant and was publicly exposed with the collapse in 2003 of the Lebanese Al-Madina bank.^[24] Al-Madina was used to launder kickback money in the illegal gaming of the UN's Iraqi oil-for-food programme. Sources put the amount transferred and laundered through al-Madina at more than $1 billion, with a 25 percent commission going to Syrian officials and their Lebanese allies, among the recipients of this money were Bashar Assad's brother Maher, Emile Lahoud's son-in-law Elias Murr, and Ghazali.^[25][26]

Presidency[link]

Syria

This article is part of the series: Politics and government of Syria

Constitution Constitution Human rights Executive President Bashar al-Assad Vice President Farouk al-Sharaa Najah al-Attar Prime Minister Adel Safar Cabinet Legislature Parliament Speaker Mahmoud al-Abrash Judiciary Court system High Judicial Council Supreme Constitutional Court Divisions Governorates Districts Elections General elections 2007 pres. 2012 parl. Political parties National Progressive Front Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party Foreign policy Foreign relations Arab–Israeli conflict

Other countries · Atlas Politics portal view talk edit

When the elder Assad died in 2000, Bashar was appointed leader of the Ba'ath Party and the Army, and was elected president unopposed in what the regime claimed to be a massive popular support (97.2% of the votes), after the Majlis Al Sha'ab (Parliament) swiftly voted to lower the minimum age for candidates from 40 to 34 (Assad's age when he was elected). On 27 May 2007, Bashar was approved as president for another seven-year term, with the official result of 97.6% of the votes in a referendum without another candidate.^[27]

In his domestic policy, he has been criticised for a disregard for human rights, economic lapses, and corruption.^[28][29][30] In his foreign policy, Al-Assad is an outspoken critic of the United States and Israel.^[31] The Ba'ath Party remains in control of the parliament, and is constitutionally the "leading party" of the state. Until he became president, Bashar al-Assad was not greatly involved in politics; his only public role was head of the Syrian Computer Society, which introduced the Internet to Syria in 2001. Al-Assad was confirmed as president by an unopposed referendum in 2000. He was expected to take a more liberal approach than his father. In an interview he stated that he saw democracy in Syria as 'a tool to a better life' but then argued that it would take time for democracy to come about and that it could not be rushed.^[32] Politically and economically, Syrian life has changed only slightly since 2000. Immediately after he took office a reform movement made cautious advances during the Damascus Spring, which led al-Assad to shut down Mezzeh prison and release hundreds of political prisoners. However, security crackdowns commenced again within the year.^[33][34]

Economy[link]

Economic liberalization in Syria has been limited, with industry still heavily state-controlled. However some changes have occurred including the introduction of private banking and the encouragement of foreign involvement, most notably in the oil sector. The need for a diversification of the economy has been pressed for by some^[35] as it has been predicted that Syria will change from exporting to having to import oil by 2015. The reliance upon oil is reflected by manufacturing exports representing only 3.1 percent of Syria’s GDP.^[36] These issues are especially relevant as Syria’s population is predicted to more than double to over 34 million by 2050.^[37] There have been mild economic sanctions (the Syria Accountability Act) applied by the United States which further complicate the situation. Of major importance are the negotiations for a free trade association agreement with the European Union.

Human rights[link]

Billboard with portrait of Assad and the text God protects Syria on the old city wall of Damascus 2006

A 2007 law required internet cafes to record all the comments users post on chat forums.^[38] Websites such as Wikipedia Arabic, YouTube and Facebook were blocked intermittently between 2008 and February 2011.^[39][40][41]

Human Rights groups, such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, have detailed how Bashar's regime and secret police routinely tortured, imprisoned, and killed political opponents, and those who speak out against the regime.^[42][43]

Since 2006 it expanded the use of travel bans against dissidents, a practice that is illegal under international law.^{[citation needed]} In that regard, Syria is the worst offender among Arab states.^[44]

In an interview with ABC News in 2007^[32] he stated: "We don't have such [things as] political prisoners," yet the New York Times reported the arrest of 30 political prisoners in Syria in December 2007.^[45]

Foreign Policy magazine editorialized on his position in the wake of the 2011 protests:^[46]

During its decades of rule... the Assad family developed a strong political safety net by firmly integrating the military into the regime. In 1970, Hafez al-Assad, Bashar’s father, seized power after rising through the ranks of the Syrian armed forces, during which time he established a network of loyal Alawites by installing them in key posts. In fact, the military, ruling elite, and ruthless secret police are so intertwined that it is now impossible to separate the Assad regime from the security establishment.... So... the regime and its loyal forces have been able to deter all but the most resolute and fearless oppositional activists. In this respect, the situation in Syria is to a certain degree comparable to Saddam Hussein’s strong Sunni minority rule in Iraq.

Foreign relations[link]

Assad with Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev

Assad's first official foreign trip was to meet Jacques Chirac in France, who had warm relations with him. The Middle Eastern Quarterly noted that "As in the case of Iraq, there are lingering questions of Syrian payments to French politicians. Many French politicians join associations and charitable boards both for financial and political gain."^[47]

The United States, European Union, the March 14 Alliance, Israel, and France accuse Assad of providing practical support to militant groups active against Israel and against opposition political groups. The latter category would include most political parties other than Hezbollah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad.^[48] According to MEMRI, Assad claimed the United States could benefit from the Syrian experience in fighting organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood at the Hama Massacre.^[49]

Assad opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq despite a long-standing animosity between the Syrian and Iraqi governments. Assad used Syria's seat in one of rotating positions on the United Nations Security Council to try to prevent the invasion of Iraq.^[50] Following the Iraq invasion by US and allied forces, Assad was accused of supporting the Iraqi insurgency. A US general accused him of providing funding, logistics, and training to Iraqi and foreign Muslims to launch attacks against U.S. and allied forces occupying Iraq.^[51]

Former President of Brazil Lula da Silva and Bashar al Assad

The February 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and the accusation of Syrian involvement and support for anti-Israeli groups, helped precipitate a crisis in relations with the United States. Assad was criticised for Syria's presence in Lebanon which ended in 2005, and the U.S. placed sanctions upon Syria partly because of this. At Pope John Paul II's funeral in 2005, Assad shook hands with the Israeli president Moshe Katsav.

In the Arab world, Assad mended relations with the Palestine Liberation Organization but relations with many Arab states, in particular Saudi Arabia, have been deteriorating. This is in part due to Assad's continued intervention in Lebanon and his alliance with Iran. Around the time of the 2008 South Ossetia war, Assad made an official visit to Russia. In an interview with the Russian TV channel Vesti, he asserted that one cannot separate the events in the Caucasus from the US presence in Iraq, which he condemned as a direct threat to [Syria's] security."

After the 2005 assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, many media outlets accused Syria of being involved.^{[citation needed]} as Hariri was anti-Syrian. However, Assad argued that Syria's gradual withdrawal of troops from Lebanon, beginning in 2000, was precipitated as a result of the event and ended in May 2005.^[52]

In 2011, Assad told the Wall Street Journal that he considered himself "anti-Israel" and "anti-West", and that because of these policies he was not in danger of being overthrown.^[31]

Involvement in Lebanon[link]

Despite gaining re-election in 2007, al-Assad’s position was considered by some to have been weakened by the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon following the Cedar Revolution in 2005. There has also been pressure from the U.S. concerning claims that Syria is linked to terrorist networks, exacerbated by Syrian condemnation of the assassination of Imad Mughniyeh, Hezbollah military leader, in Damascus in 2008. Interior Minister Bassam Abdul-Majeed stated that, "Syria, which condemns this cowardly terrorist act, expresses condolences to the martyr family and to the Lebanese people.”^[53]

Arab-Israeli conflict[link]

In a speech about the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict in August 2006, Bashar al-Assad said that Hezbollah had "hoisted the banner of victory," hailing its actions as a "successful resistance."^[54] He claimed that Arab resistance was growing stronger, and warned Israel that "your warplanes, rockets, and your atomic bomb will not protect you in the future." He called Israel an enemy with whom no peace could be achieved as long as they and their allies (especially the U.S.) support the practice of preemptive war. In the same speech, he also called Arab leaders that have criticized Hezbollah "half-men."

In April 2008, Assad told a Qatari newspaper that Syria and Israel had been discussing a peace treaty for a year, with Turkey as a go-between. This was confirmed in May 2008, by a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. As well as a peace treaty, the future of the Golan Heights is being discussed. Assad was quoted in The Guardian as telling the Qatari paper:

. . . there would be no direct negotiations with Israel until a new US president takes office. The US was the only party qualified to sponsor any direct talks, [Assad] told the paper, but added that the Bush administration "does not have the vision or will for the peace process. It does not have anything."^[55]

According to leaked American cables, Bashar al Assad called Hamas an "uninvited guest" and said "If you want me to be effective and active, I have to have a relationship with all parties. Hamas is Muslim Brotherhood, but we have to deal with the reality of their presence.", comparing Hamas to the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood which was crushed by his father Hafez al Assad. He then claimed Hamas would disappear if peace was brought to the Middle East.^[56][57]

Assad has indicated that the peace treaty that he envisions would not be the same kind of peace treaty Israel has with Egypt where there is a legal border crossing and open trade. In a 2006 interview with Charlie Rose, Assad said “There is a big difference between talking about a peace treaty and peace. A peace treaty is like a permanent ceasefire. There’s no war, maybe you have an embassy, but you actually won’t have trade, you won’t have normal relations because people will not be sympathetic to this relation as long as they are sympathetic with the Palestinians: half a million who live in Syria and half a million in Lebanon and another few millions in other Arab countries.”^[58]

During the visit of Pope John Paul II to Syria in 2001, Bashar al-Assad requested an apology to Muslims for the medieval Crusades and criticised Israeli treatment of Palestinians. Comparing their suffering to that believed to have been endured by Jesus Christ in Palestine, Assad claimed that the Jews "tried to kill the principles of all religions with the same mentality in which they betrayed Jesus Christ and the same way they tried to betray and kill the Prophet Muhammad."^{[59][60][61][62][63]} Responding to claims that his comment was antisemitic, Assad said that whereas Judaism is a racially heterogeneous religion, the Syrian people are the core of the Semitic race and therefore are opposed to the term antisemitism. When offered to retract his comment implying that the Jews were responsible for Jesus' suffering, Assad replied, "As always, these are historical facts that we cannot deny," and stressed that his remarks were not anti-Jewish.^[64] In February 2011 Bashar backed an initiative to restore 10 synagogues in Syria, which had a Jewish community numbering 30,000 in 1947 but has only 200 Jews today.^[65]

2011–2012 uprising[link]

Following anti-government demonstrations in some other Middle Eastern countries, protests in Syria started on 26 January 2011. Protesters called for political reforms and the re-instatement of civil rights, as well as an end to the state of emergency which had been in place since 1963.^[66] One attempt at a "day of rage" was set for 4–5 February 2011, though it ended uneventfully.^[67][68] Protests on 18–19 March were the largest to take place in Syria for decades and the Syrian authority responded with violence against its protesting citizens.

On 18 May 2011, Barack Obama, the U.S. President, signed an Executive order putting into effect sanctions against Bashar al-Assad in an effort to pressure his government "to end its use of violence against its people and begin transitioning to a democratic system that protects the rights of the Syrian people."^[69] The sanctions effectively freeze any of the Syrian President's assets either in the United States proper or within U.S. jurisdiction.^[70] On May 23, 2011 EU Foreign ministers agreed at a meeting in Brussels to add President Assad and nine other officials to a list affected by travel bans and asset freezes.^[71] On May 24, 2011 Canada imposed sanctions on Syrian leaders, including President Assad.^[72]

On 20 June 2011, in a speech lasting nearly an hour, in response to the demands of protesters and foreign pressure, al-Assad promised a national dialogue involving movement toward reform, new parliamentary elections, and greater freedoms. He also urged refugees to return home from Turkey, while assuring them amnesty and blaming all unrest on a small number of saboteurs.^[73]

In August 2011, Syrian security forces attacked the country's best-known political cartoonist, Ali Farzat, a noted critic of Syria's government and its five-month crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators and dissent. Relatives of the severely beaten humorist told Western media that the attackers threatened to break Farzat's bones as a warning for him to stop drawing cartoons of government officials, particularly the president, Bashar al-Assad. Ferzat, who recently celebrated his 60th birthday, was hospitalized with fractures in both hands and blunt force trauma to the head.^[74][75]

By the end of January 2012, it was reported that over 5,000 civilians and protesters had been killed by the Syrian army, militia (Shabeeha) and security agents, while 1,100 people had been killed by the anti-regime forces.^[76]

On 10 January 2012, Assad gave a speech in which he accused the uprising of being plotted by foreign countries and claimed that "victory [was] near". He also said that the Arab League, by suspending Syria, revealed that it was no longer Arab. However, al-Assad also said the country would not "close doors" to an Arab-brokered solution if "national sovereignty" was respected. He also said a referendum on a new constitution could be held in March.^[77]

Bashar and Asma al-Assad

On 27 February 2012, Syria claimed that a referendum on an update to the nations constitution, hailed as 'a showpiece of reform' received 90% support. The referendum imposes a fourteen year cumulative term limit for the president of Syria. The referendum has been claimed as meaningless by foreign nations including the US and Turkey, and the European Union announced fresh sanctions against key regime figures.^[78]

Personal life[link]

Assad speaks English and basic conversational French, having studied at the Franco-Arab al-Hurriyah school in Damascus. In December 2000, Assad married Asma Assad, née Akhras,^[79] a British citizen of Syrian origin, from Acton, London.^[80] On 3 December 2001, they became the parents of their first-born child, named Hafez after the child's grandfather Hafez al-Assad. Zein was born on 5 November 2003, and Karim on 16 December 2004.

See also[link]

	Syria portal
	Biography portal
	Politics portal

• Cabinet of Syria
• List of current heads of state and government

References[link]

Notes