Alas, poor Bashar

Today’s “sermon” by President Asad, delivered it is said at the Damascus Opera House, is worth a glance.  It tells us something about the mindset and current thinking of a man who has led his country into the slaughter of more than 60,000 of its citizens.

Bashar views Syria–which he implicitly identifies with himself–as the victim of foreign intervention.  Takfiris and the Western powers are together attacking his country. Sure some Syrians have joined those efforts, but basically this is an international conspiracy against Syria’s independence and territorial integrity.

He continues to imagine that reforms he initiates will meet the legitimate demands of Syrians:

Such war is confronted through defending the homeland in parallel with a reform that is necessary to all of us, which may not change the reality of war, yet it strengthens us and reinforces our unity in the face of the war…Reforms without security is like security without reform. No one will be successful without the other…Those who keep parroting that Syria has opted for a security solution do not see or hear…We have repeatedly said that reforms and politics go in one hand and eliminating terrorism in the other.

He then presents a confusing (at least in English) series of numbered steps focused on national dialogue to produce a new constitution approved in a referendum, followed by elections and formation of a broadened government.

Of course something like this is precisely what the opposition in Syria is asking, but it will not accept doing it with Bashar al Asad still in power.  Therein lies the giant anomaly.  By his use of the security forces to try to repress the rebellion, Bashar has made himself the main issue in Syria.  Of this he seems unaware, though he clearly is not feeling cheerful:

…out of the womb of pain, hope should be begotten and from the bottom of suffering the most important solutions rise, as the dark cloud in the sky conceals the sun light, but it also carries in its layers rain, purity and hope of welfare and giving….These feelings of agony, sadness, challenge and intention are huge energy that will not get Syria out of its crisis unless it turns this energy into a comprehensive national move that saves the homeland from the unprecedented campaign hatched against it.

The notion that Syrians will accept him as the leader of a “comprehensive national move” is so far-fetched that it hardly bears notice, except as evidence of the self-delusion still ensconced at the top of the regime.

Bashar’s appeal to Syrian nationalism is, I think, as sincere as it is delusional.  He imagines that the war he is fighting will strengthen Syria:

The blood of martyrs protected and will protect the homeland and the region, and will protect our territorial integrity and reinforce accord among us, while at the same time purify our society of disloyalty and treason, and keep us from moral, human and cultural downfall, which is the strongest victory…When the homeland triumphs, it does not forget those who sacrificed for its sake.

There follows after this the requisite thanks to his armed forces.

So this is the thinking of the Syrian president after nearly two years of using his military and security services to kill his citizens and destroy their homes:  we are purifying our society and will be stronger for it.  He will not compromise, but if his opponents will lay down their arms he offers to lead a process of reform that will broaden political participation, but implicitly not so far as to affect his powers.

I don’t expect the opposition, which is doing well militarily, to agree to anything except Bashar al Asad’s departure from power.  He is not only a dead man walking, but one unlikely to walk much farther.  Alas, poor Bashar:

a fellow
of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy….now, how
abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rims at
it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know
not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your
gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment,
that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one
now, to mock your own grinning? quite chap-fallen?

PS:  State Department was no more impressed with the speech than I was, though they failed to quote Shakespeare in response.