While early last week we saw US strikes into Syria, since then attention has focused on the crisis with North Korea. However the Syrian problem is not going anywhere. Ever since Hafez al-Assad came to power via a bloodless coup in 1970, he has exasperated nine American Presidents of both Democratic and Republican persuasion. “Time-consuming, nerve-racking, and bizarre,” Kissinger said of his sessions with Hafez al-Assad. But in the words of Robin Wright, his son Bashar al-Assad, initially regarded as a reformer, has proven he does not possess his father's 'shrewd instincts or even much common political sense'.

An account of America's relationship with the al-Assad family