President Hafez Assad leaves a mixed legacy. He brought relative stability in his thirty-year reign to a country which had been wracked with coups and counter-coups in the preceding years, yet it came at an enormous price in terms of basic human rights. He maintained a commitment to socialism and nationalism, yet did so through a cult of personality and insular style which alienated Syrians from across the political spectrum. He successfully curbed the influence of extremist Islamic movements, but at a cost of many thousands of lives in a brutal 1982 crackdown.