Al-Assad’s Strategy to Avoid Becoming a Puppet of Russia and Iran by Abdullah Al-Ghadhawi / March 11, 2021 / State Resilience & Fragility⠀/Authoritarianism / Recent moves by Bashar al-Assad in the security sphere show the embattled Syrian president still has cards to play to preserve his power, despite having sacrificed much influence to Iran and Russia to secure his regime’s survival in the civil war. Despite everything being said about the Syrian president’s weakness and inability to manage the country alone, he is still holding on to power despite the encroachment of his Russian and Iranian allies and, as his late father did, exploiting the regime’s secret weapon: the security services and their sectarian structure. This has proven to be the key to preserving the core of the regime and ensuring al-Assad’s survival...