Syria's Land Reform

Khalid wrote me this about Syrian land reform: I cite with his permission:
"The Bath Party in Syria was not responsible for Land Reform. It was the first acts of Nasser after unity. It was completed in 1959 affected all land owned beyond a certain size and in the process destroyed all large holdings in Al-Jazeera, the region bound by the Euphrates, which includes three Governorates and is Syria's granary and today a major source of oil as well.  Akram Hourani may be responsible for awakening the peasants and mobilizing them. But his ambitions and lack of principles came first Michael Aflak was not a socialist. The merger of the Arab Party (Aflak - Bitar) with the Socialist Ba'ath Party (Hourani) led to the Ba'ath Arab Socialist Party, and hence socialism of a highly diluted type, became a Ba'athist mantra.  But the Ba'ath party was an historical necessity, it seems. About which I would like to write sometime. It represented a group ready to do a deal - with the Muslim Brothers, the Colonialists, the Imperialists, the Nasserites, and if they were forced to, the Communists, too. I hope I am not exaggerating writing impromptu like  this.  Still, one records that Hafi'th Al-Assad had an important side, that of steadfast foreign policy that grilled enemies of the Arab peoples. His son seems even more astute and had inherited his father acumen at  picking foreign policy aids of the same, if not better quality."

PS I am not in agreement about the assessment of Asad regime but I may reply later.