Syria’s rhetoric backfires
President al-Assad's promises of electoral reform failed to quell the four-month-old uprising.
Massive new protests erupted across Syria this week after President Bashar al-Assad, in a supposedly conciliatory speech, blamed the country’s recent unrest on foreign-backed “saboteurs” and “vandals.” In his first public address in two months, Assad told a crowd of loyalists at Damascus University that he would pursue electoral reform and end four decades of totalitarian rule, but he gave no details or time frame.
Assad’s vague concessions failed to quell the four-month-old uprising, during which some 1,300 civilians have been killed. In Damascus, 300 demonstrators took to the streets after his speech, chanting, “No to dialogue with murderers.” In neighboring Turkey, where more than 10,000 Syrians have fled to escape the violence, crowds of refugees demanded Assad’s ouster, shouting “liar!” U.S. officials also dismissed the address as mere rhetoric. What’s important, said State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland, is “action, not words.”
Assad’s address was “a desperate last-ditch effort to save an ailing regime,” said Max Fisher in The Atlantic. The dictator knows that his military is overstretched, and that international sanctions are hitting home. The very fact that he “felt compelled to make” such a speech—something fellow Arab despots in Egypt and Tunisia did “at their lowest points in the battles against popular protests”—is a sign that the “situation in Syria, though still bleak, could be rapidly turning.”
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
President Obama could speed up that end game by declaring outright that Assad has “lost the legitimacy to lead,” said P.J. Crowley in The Washington Post. Until now, Obama has granted the Syrian leader the option of implementing reforms or getting “out of the way.” Now it’s clear that Assad will never back any reform that would drive “him and his cronies out of business,” so we should get “off the fence and on the right side of history.”
Obama has to do more than shake off his “cautious stance on the Syrian revolution,” said Pathik Root in CNN.com. He has to lead. Only the U.S. can push China and Russia to approve a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning the crackdown, and get tough sanctions imposed on the “corrupt businessmen” propping up “Bashar the Butcher.” Obama doesn’t have the luxury of “waiting for someone else to make a move—it’s game time.”
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
-
'No war is good'
Today's Newspapers A roundup of the headlines from the US front pages
By The Week Staff Published
-
The Week Unwrapped: will the US end child marriage?
Podcast Why some states have no lower limit on marriage age, plus Black maternal health and the price of olive oil
By The Week Staff Published
-
Perplexity AI: has Google finally met its match?
In The Spotlight Generative AI start-up provides fast, Wikipedia-like responses to search queries
By Chas Newkey-Burden, The Week UK Published
-
Arizona court reinstates 1864 abortion ban
Speed Read The law makes all abortions illegal in the state except to save the mother's life
By Rafi Schwartz, The Week US Published
-
Trump, billions richer, is selling Bibles
Speed Read The former president is hawking a $60 "God Bless the USA Bible"
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
The debate about Biden's age and mental fitness
In Depth Some critics argue Biden is too old to run again. Does the argument have merit?
By Grayson Quay Published
-
How would a second Trump presidency affect Britain?
Today's Big Question Re-election of Republican frontrunner could threaten UK security, warns former head of secret service
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
'Rwanda plan is less a deterrent and more a bluff'
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
By The Week UK Published
-
Henry Kissinger dies aged 100: a complicated legacy?
Talking Point Top US diplomat and Nobel Peace Prize winner remembered as both foreign policy genius and war criminal
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Last updated
-
Trump’s rhetoric: a shift to 'straight-up Nazi talk'
Why everyone's talking about Would-be president's sinister language is backed by an incendiary policy agenda, say commentators
By The Week UK Published
-
More covfefe: is the world ready for a second Donald Trump presidency?
Today's Big Question Republican's re-election would be a 'nightmare' scenario for Europe, Ukraine and the West
By Sorcha Bradley, The Week UK Published