( Check out Deconstructing the Syrian War, my new e-book on the Syrian war, the most consequential war of recent times)

Before ISIS, Al Qaeda, Muslim Brotherhood, Salafists and Saudi Arabia’s Wahhabi mosques tried to destroy Syria, it was a secular, cosmopolitan and progressive country. Here is a slideshow of Syria from the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. Bashar Assad and his dad Hafez Assad played a major role in keeping Syria secular.

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