With global attention focused on whether President Barack Obama was outmaneuvered by Vladimir Putin and Bashar al-Assad over Syria, little has been said about Assad’s growing dependence on outside actors, and how this has made him politically vulnerable. It was not always that way. A tenet of the late Hafez al-Assad was that Syria would always be the master of its own destiny. In defense of Syrian priorities, the late president was willing to confront the Soviet Union when he deployed his army to Lebanon in 1976 and fought the Palestine Liberation Organization. Likewise, he built up a strategic relationship with Iran during the 1980s, even though this angered many powerful Arab countries, who supported Iraq.
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