●Bashar al-Assad takes the Lebanon file from Khaddam; Shihabi retires

In 1998 vice-president Abdel Halim Khaddam, the architect of Syrian policy in Lebanon since the 1970s, asked to be relieved of the file over his opposition to Emile Lahoud's candidacy, and the file passed to Bashar al-Assad, who pushed his father to back Lahoud despite the objections of Berri, Jumblatt and Hariri; Khaddam wrote that the file "fell into the hands of the security services". On 8 July 1998 the chief of staff Hikmat Shihabi resigned after 24 years. This is read as the beginning of the removal of the old guard that had run Lebanon with Hafez al-Assad, while the intelligence generals in Anjar kept the final say on the ground.