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Moving from Denial to Bargaining: Five Takeaways from Assad speech

President-al-Assad-Peoples-Assembly-speech-3

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. Continue reading “Moving from Denial to Bargaining: Five Takeaways from Assad speech”