Hafez had the Syrian branch of Baath. Ideologies with Iraq's Baath were slightly different as each country had its own interests and as is often with Arabs,each leader wanted to be the one in charge.
You're very wrong about "no one willing to die for assad". There are people who see that Assad is the guarantee of their way of life and everything they believe in. Even if they don't love Assad,they fight for their government and their country. They want stability.
Christians,Shia,Druze and pro-government Sunnis.
There are sunnis who despise salafism and all those barbarians,while not loving the Persians either. If Assad didn't have a big enough sunni base,the government would have lost the war from the beginning.