What Lies Ahead For Syria After Death of President Assad?
Aired June 11, 2000 – 8:35 a.m. ET THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. MILES O’BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: The world is waiting to see what’s ahead for Syria and wondering about the legacy of Hafez Al-Assad. For some answers we’re joined by Patrick Clawson, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Thanks for being with us, Patrick. PATRICK CLAWSON, WASHINGTON INSTITUTE FOR NEAR EAST POLICY: Glad to be here this morning. O’BRIEN: All right, a little while ago we were talking to former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres and he suggested that Hafez Al- Assad was a bit of an anachronism, sort of an artifact from cold war days, and that his passing really represents an opening for the peace process in the Middle East. Would you go along with that? CLAWSON: Certainly Assad is an anachronism. This is a guy who runs a very severely controlled society. The last time he was so- called elected president he won 99.95 percent of the
