Include files such as <cassert> usually have a guard involving the #define of a specific symbol to prevent then from being included twice. Once you have defined your own version of assert(), perhaps you could #define the <cassert> guard symbol as a way of preventing the local <cassert> from being included.

Unfortunately cassert/assert.h are required by the std to redefine assert each time they are included, there are good reasons for this, but it doesn't help in this case :-( John.