Meet the man who could be the next president in Damascus. If he's not already dead.
BEIRUT - It was Sept. 4, and the war drums were sounding in Syria. The United States appeared to be on the verge of launching strikes against President Bashar al-Assad's regime. Family members of the country's economic and political elite fled to Beirut, looking to avoid the cruise missiles. And there were rumblings that the Syrian opposition had secured their most important defection yet from the regime's ranks: former Defense Minister Ali Habib.