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B At the time of writing, Bashar still seems to have a chance, if a slim one, of stabilising the situation and perhaps earning a further spell in power -- but only if he calls a halt to the killing of protesters and takes the lead of the reform movement, and in effect carries out a silent coup against the hardliners. But it may well be too late for that. Indeed, Bashar may already have lost authority to men like his brother, Maher al-Assad, commander of the regime’s Republican Guard, who seems to advocate crushing the protests by force. If the army and the security services remain loyal, it will be difficult for the opposition to unseat the regime. But there have been ominous rumours of army defections as well as reports that some members of the Ba’ath Party have resigned. It needs to be recognised that the Assad regime does have determined enemies, at home and abroad, who conspire against it in the neighbouring countries -- Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and also Israel -- and among Syrian exiles in London, Paris and the US. These enemies have smelled blood. Riding on the turbulent wave of popular dissent, they will not easily give up. According to US diplomatic cables, released by WikiLeaks and published in mid-April in The Washington Post, the State Department secretly financed a London-based network of Bashar’s opponents to the tune of $12m between 2005 and 2010. A continuous whole It is probably fair to view Bashar al-Assad’s term of office and that of his father as a single continuous whole. Not only did Hafez al-Assad decide that Bashar should succeed him, but he also bequeathed to him an autocratic system based on an all-powerful centralising presidency, and a set of principles and external allies and opponents which together determine Syria’s foreign policy. Bashar’s whole career -- like that of his father before him -- has been shaped by Syria’s contest with Israel. Syria has had to live, fight and survive in HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_024966