 Some sources have discussed the "Sunnification" of Alawites under the al-Assad regime.Joshua Landis, director of the Center for Middle East Studies, writes that Hafiz al-Assad "tried to turn Alawites into 'good' (read Sunnified) Muslims in exchange for preserving a modicum of secularism and tolerance in society".On the other hand, Al-Assad "declared the Alawites to be nothing but Twelver Shiites".