LONDON -- Ignore all the empty chatter about the future of a "Middle East peace process" that died months ago, and waste no time in futile speculation about the character of Syria's new president, mild-mannered ophthalmologist Dr. Bashar Assad. The regime that was run for the past 30 years by Bashar's late father Hafez Assad, ex-fighter pilot, occasional mass murderer and latter-day statesman, is a system that gives Bashar almost no room for maneuver.
Like the regime in neighboring Iraq led by his fellow Ba'athist and deadliest enemy, Saddam Hussein, the basis of Assad's rule in Syria was astonishingly primitive. In a pattern as old as the Hittites and the Assyrians, it was built on his own charisma plus the loyalty and cohesion of his own clan and tribe.
Assad's power base was the Alawites, a people who make up only 10 percent of Syria's population and are viewed as near-heretics by the orthodox Sunni Muslim majority. The Alawites have reaped enormous benefits from being on top in Syria, but they are riding a tiger, and their main requirement of a leader is that he knows how to keep them from falling off.