Syria: fall of Assad a blow for Iran’s ‘Shia crescent’ – here are its foreign policy options in the new-look Middle East
When Hafez al-Assad, an Alawite minority member, seized control of the Ba'ath Party in Syria in 1970, he faced a significant backlash. The Syrian Constitution stipulated that only Muslims could hold the presidency, and the Alawites were deemed non-Muslim by many Sunni groups.