When he took power the Lion of Damascus Hafez al-Assad, father of the current Syrian president, his future seemed already written. Just defeated in the Six-day war, Syria appeared destined to continue the strip of instability that distinguished it from the times of independence.
In reality the political balances in the Middle East have bizarre times, often detached from the military chronicles. Although inserted among the villains, Assad's father pragmatism paradoxically became a certainty for Israel, with which he even managed to freeze the results of the Kippur War in the 1973 without further tragedies.
Basically two factors that guaranteed Assad's long life and the continuity of power with his son:
- The guarantee of stability, the only alternative to chaos, intolerable in a key state of the Middle Eastern chessboard;
- The cold and even conflictual line towards the PLO, with consequent poor follow-up among the Palestinian population.
The first point, common to many Arab governments of the area and humbly called for by the most far-sighted diplomacies, has been partially contradicted by the unfortunate euphoria for the Arab springs. However, wisdom and a sense of reality have brought things back in place. This is how a stable Syria is agreed by everyone for at least forty years.
Frost with Arafat allowed Damascus to remain on the Aventine side of Middle Eastern politics, without renouncing its radical positions.
While not recognizing Israel and fully involved in all the Arab-Israeli frictions, including the 1982 Lebanon War, Syria has carved out a crucial but at the same time secluded role for years. The lack of organic support for the Palestinian Question has allowed Israel to isolate the phenomenon, relegating it to a generic anti-Zionist instance ridden by this or that Middle Eastern country without a concrete project.
It is not risky to say then that despite the conflict at 360 ° between Syria and Israel, a line of power continues in Damascus, has helped Tel Aviv more than one might imagine.
If it is true that no leaf moves that the Mossad does not want, this explains a whole series of consolidated reality over the years.
It is no coincidence that Syria since the 70 years has managed to keep the most powerful military apparatus in the Middle East after the Israeli one. 
First among the Arab countries (more than Egypt, disoriented by the relay between Soviet and Western supplies in the '80 years, and more than Iraq weakened by the sanctions following the First Gulf War), it was able to excel for a long time even compared to the Iran, for twenty years victim of the American isolation following the 79 revolution.
Once again the concrete and cynical Israeli spirit prevailed according to which the lesser of two evils must be chosen: Syria was thus able to engage with Tehran, its Shiite sister (although outside the Arab world) and even continue to arm Hezbollah, provided that 'Iran remained forced in a regional perspective without nuclear power and that Hezbollah operated confined to Lebanon.
The cunning of Assad has always been to remain within tolerable margins, without overdoing it, indirectly supporting external interests according to logic "The enemy of my enemy is my friend", so loved in the Middle East.
Hence the Shiite Syria-Iran-Hezbollah triangle, from a triptych of the devil, has become strategic in an anti-Sunni key and as an element of discord within the Islamic world. Suffice it to say that Hezbollah is fighting ISIS on the strength of its experience in the guerrilla warfare and that Iran has been sending planes to Syria for almost a year without anyone (Israel ...) objecting.
If it were not for the upheaval caused by the cooling of Israeli-American relations, everything would fit into the schemes of one Realpolitik cynical but useful to all. The US position of the 2013 in March at the limits of the open war against the Bassar al-Assad government is clear evidence of this. Contrary to the indications of Israel, the Obama administration has run aground on a democratic radicalism by making demagogic principles prevail over political rationality. The Damascus dynasty, for decades on the list of culprits but still able to survive and feed itself, found itself so suddenly in the sights.
If the emotional wake of September 11 could be partly as a mitigating factor for Bush's reckless invasion of Iraq, finding a reason for Obama's anti-Assad crusade is logically difficult. Not worth the refrained refrain of the rais sacrificed on the altar of freedom and human rights, but not even the logic of political calculation finds space. More simply, it is impossible to identify the objectives of a hostility that rewards a maze of disturbing Islamic organizations or at best fluid and unreliable. Understanding which strategic advantage the change of guard in Damascus entails for the US is among the most complex nodes of the current Middle Eastern theater.
The further instability in which American obstinacy threatens to topple the entire region, rather rewards the resourcefulness of Russia which fills a great political vacuum with supplies and a direct military presence in favor of Assad.
In reality, nothing new in Damascus. Moscow's shadow was already behind Assad's father T-55. Russian interests in Syria, whether in pure geopolitical terms or to be read in terms of pure opposition to the US, have been obvious for decades.
Who in America today is indignant, repeats the post-Crimean mistake: believing that the world can be managed with a unipolar perspective.
Meanwhile, Israel, which had chirped with the beginning of the Syrian crisis al-Nusra Front ventilating a changing of the guard in Damascus, it remains on the pragmatic line and is watching. Not so much the evolutions in Syria, as those in Washington where the change of tenant in the White House is expected spasmodically.
Whether it's democratic or republican it doesn't matter. With an excuse or the other there is to expect a change of course on Middle Eastern policies, bankruptcy on the whole line from at least 15 years. Meanwhile we continue to line up the days of Bassar Assad, who Barak Obama gave them counted three years ago.
