Moving from Denial to Bargaining: Five Takeaways from Assad speech

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If we are to apply the five stages of loss and grief on Syria’s Bashar Assad, he seems reluctantly halfway in “bargaining”, after five years of denial and anger. Here are my five takeaways from his June 7 speech before “Parliament”:

1- Showing disdain for Syrian rivals

Assad nicknamed the Syrian opposition as “the traitors who are outside”, “other factions”, and “mop of their masters”. A major obstacle to the Geneva negotiations has been indeed the Assad regime looking down at the Syrian opposition with a preference to talk with the countries they back them. Assad praised the sacrifices of the Syrian people living under his territorial control, yet had no reference to all the Syrians killed by his atrocities. He also did not mention the Syrian refugees, with more than 4.5 million stranded across the world. Assad still sees the Syrian war as a “regional and international conflict” and demonizing fellow Syrians serve that purpose.

2- Blaming the West and most foreigners

Assad noted that the West wants “to continue its domination of the world at any price” and “refuses any partnership” with others, a rational that feeds into the Russian stance as Assad struggles to stay relevant on Moscow’s priorities. Ironically, he also accused the West of his own syndrome: “dealing with any partnership as an issue of life and death”. Ignoring all their known rifts on the Syrian policy, Assad described Turkey and Saudi Arabia as “proxies of the U.S. in the region” without any reference to Israel’s role in the conflict. He specifically warned his supporters to disregard all the talks about divisions and conflicts between the allies supporting the regime (i.e. Iran and Russia). By just mentioning this point out of nowhere, Assad seems concerned about something.

3- Not giving up power any time soon

Assad was defiant on the concept of political transition and highlighted the term “credible governance” in the Geneva Communique. He said that “credible” does not apply to ISIS, Jabhat al-Nusra or the Syrian rebels on the ground nor to the Syrian opposition outside the country, hence he will not give up power to any of them. Adamant about federalism or partition, Assad argued that Syria should stay unified and not turn into a sectarian system controlled by foreigners. He vowed to continue fighting until all of Syria is liberated without mentioning how he can do that and at what price, in particular with the Kurdish factor. Assad only showed commitment to what he called “political process” (not negotiations), however, he noted that “any political process that does not start, continue or end with eradicating terrorism has no meaning and yield no results”. Most importantly, he seems interested in the local reconciliation process, where armed citizens give up their weapons in return of impunity, more than peace talks in Geneva where he might be compelled to give up power at some point.

4- Fragile truce has been good to the Syrian regime

Assad said that “we cannot deny the many positives of the truce”. With his troops stretched thin, he argued that the truce allowed him to change military tactics and refocus priorities, where the Syrian regime troops were able to regain control of Tadmur and other towns in the suburbs of Damascus.  Yet, Assad did not show signs of backing away on Aleppo. He shaped the narrative of the battle as a fight between him and Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan, saying that Aleppo “will be the graveyard where the hopes and dreams of the butcher will be buried”.

5- Syrian economy continues to falter

Assad talked about the “economic terrorism” of international sanctions on the Syrian regime as well as the “the terrorism of suicide bombing and massacres”. Syria’s GDP is $23 billion (down from $60 billion in 2010) and the Syrian war costed the country $250 billion (according to the Syrian Center for Policy Research), while the Syrian pound deteriorated 91 percent in value. There is no doubt Assad is concerned that the dire Syrian economy will have on the short term a negative impact on what remains from his support base.

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