How did the Assad family seize power in Syria? The answer lies in a man named Hafez al-Assad (basically, imagine an alternate version of Bashar al-Assad with confidence and a modicum of masculinity).
Hafez rises from a poor country boy from the Alawite heartland, the bottom rung of the Syrian socioeconomic power, to becoming the most powerful man in the country over the first forty years of his life.
The consequences of Hafez al-Assad's military and political career would lead directly to the events of 2011.
Sources cited:
*Asad: The Struggle for the Middle East *by Patrick Seale
*We Crossed A Bridge and It Trembled *by Dr. Wendy Pearlman
The Home That Was Our Country by Alia Malek
*Assad or We Burn the Country *by Sam Dagher
Music licensing:
Genocide by Silent Carrion
Creative Commons - attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives 4.0 international (cc by-nc-nd 4.0))