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.
In this critical moment, the Iranian mullahs salvaged Assad’s presidency by declaring the Alawites a branch of Shia Islam. This marked the beginning of a partnership that would shape the Middle East for the next five decades.
Syria under the Assads was the first Arab state to recognise the Islamic Republic of Iran. They supported the nascent regime against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq during the war with Iraq between 1980 and 1988.
