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Defiant Assad Says Syria ‘Accepts Advice but Not Orders’ Defiant Assad Says Syria ‘Accepts Advice but Not Orders’
(about 4 hours later)
BEIRUT, Lebanon — President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, sounding defiant, confident and, to critics, out of touch with the magnitude of his people’s grievances, proposed Sunday what he called a plan to resolve the country’s 21-month uprising with a new constitution and cabinet. BEIRUT, Lebanon — Sounding defiant, confident, and to critics, out of touch with his people’s grievances, President Bashar al-Assad of Syria used his first public address in six months to justify his harsh crackdown, rally his supporters to fight against his opponents and inform on them — and leave in tatters recent efforts toward a political resolution to the country’s bloody civil war.
But he offered no new acknowledgment of the gains by the rebels fighting against him, the excesses of his government or the aspirations of the Syrian people. Mr. Assad also ruled out talks with the armed opposition and pointedly ignored its central demand that he step down, instead using much of a nearly hourlong speech to justify his harsh military crackdown. Mr. Assad offered what he called a peace plan, including a new cabinet, a new constitution to replace the one adopted just last year in a widely dismissed reform package, and talks with officially tolerated opposition groups. But he ruled out any negotiations with the armed Syrian opposition, and pointedly ignored its demands that he step down, making his proposal a nonstarter for most of his opponents.
Mr. Assad waved to a cheering, chanting crowd as he strode to the stage of the Damascus Opera House in the central Umayyad Square — where residents said security forces had been deployed heavily the night before. In his first public speech since June 2012, he repeated his longstanding assertions that the movement against him was driven by “murderous criminals” and terrorists receiving financing from abroad, and he appeared to push back hard against recent international efforts to broker a compromise. He sounded much as he did at the start of the uprising 21 months ago, dictating which opposition groups were worthy and labeling the rest terrorists and traitors. He gave no acknowledgment that the rebels have come to control large parts of the north and east of the country, nor that many ordinary Syrians continue to demand change in the face of a crackdown that has laid waste to neighborhoods and killed tens of thousands, nor that even longtime allies like Russia have signaled that Mr. Assad may be unable to defeat the insurgency.
“Everyone who comes to Syria knows that Syria accepts advice but not orders,” he said. He even dismissed as foreign interference the mediation efforts of the United Nations envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, the senior Algerian diplomat who visited Damascus on Dec. 24, warning of national disintegration if the two sides did not negotiate a solution.
His speech came a week after the United Nations and Arab League envoy on Syria, the senior Algerian diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi, visited Damascus, the capital, in a push for a negotiated solution. “Everyone who comes to Syria knows that Syria accepts advice but not orders,” Mr. Assad told a cheering, chanting crowd at the Damascus Opera House, on Umayyad Square in the center of the capital, where residents said the security forces were deployed heavily starting the night before.
“Who should we negotiate with? Terrorists?” Mr. Assad asked. “We will negotiate with their masters.” “He doesn’t seem to have moved an inch since summer 2011,” said Yezid Sayigh, an analyst at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut, noting that Mr. Assad gave “barely the slightest nod” to Mr. Brahimi’s proposals.
Mr. Assad’s speech was a disappointment for international mediators and many Syrians who say they believe that without a negotiated settlement, Syria’s conflict will descend into an even bloodier stage. The United Nations estimates that more than 60,000 people have died in what began as a peaceful protest movement and transformed into armed struggle after security forces fired on demonstrators. Coming after days of hints that Mr. Assad might at last be ready to negotiate, his defiant speech on Sunday promised trouble for both his friends and his enemies. Russia may find it harder to stave off international action against Syria, which it has done so far using its veto at the United Nations Security Council, as the chances for a political solution seem to recede.
Rebels have made gains in the north and east of Syria and in the Damascus suburbs, but Mr. Assad’s government has pushed back with devastating airstrikes and artillery bombardments and appears confident that it can hold the capital. Neither side appears ready to give up the prospect of a military victory. Moreover, Mr. Assad’s defiance may prompt Mr. Brahimi to decline to continue his mission. That would present the “Friends of Syria,” the group of nations supporting the opposition — the United States and its Western allies, Turkey and some Arab countries — with an unpalatable choice: intervene more aggressively or risk allowing the conflict to drag on indefinitely.
The tenor of Mr. Assad’s speech is likely to raise the question of whether Mr. Brahimi’s mission serves any purpose; there was no immediate comment from him or his staff. “Assad is not letting the Friends of Syria off the hook by making it easy for them to declare victory and close the Syria file,” Mr. Sayigh said. “Now what will they do?”
Mr. Assad’s opponents rejected the proposal as meaningless, sticking to their longstanding demand that the president resign as a precondition to negotiations. The United Nations estimates that more than 60,000 people have died in the civil war, which began as a peaceful protest movement and turned into an armed struggle after security forces fired on demonstrators. Rebels have made gains in the north and east and in the Damascus suburbs, but Mr. Assad’s government has pushed back with deadly air and artillery strikes, and appears to be confident that it can hold the capital. Neither side appears ready to give up the prospect of military victory, though analysts say neither side is close to achieving it.
“We can’t deal with this murderous regime at all,” George Sabra, a member of the opposition Syrian National Council, said in a brief interview. “This regime has killed 60,000 people, so no one could possibly think that working with this regime is a possibility. It is out of the question.” Mr. Assad’s defiant stance on Sunday “means we’re in for a long fight,” said Joshua Landis, a University of Oklahoma professor who studies Syria and Alawites. “This is a dark, dark tunnel. There is no good ending to this. Assad believes he is winning.”
Mr. Assad, whose family has ruled Syria for 42 years, said Sunday that he was open to dialogue with “those who have not betrayed Syria,” apparently a reference to tolerated opposition groups that reject armed revolution, like the National Coordination Body for Democratic Change, whose members have been floated by Syria’s allies China and Russia as possible compromise brokers. Victoria Nuland, the spokeswoman for the State Department, said in a statement that Mr. Assad’s speech was “yet another attempt by the regime to cling to power, and does nothing to advance the Syrian people’s goal of a political transition.” She said that even as Mr. Assad “speaks of dialogue, the regime is deliberately stoking sectarian tensions and continuing to kill its own people.”
Yet Mr. Assad’s speech appeared unlikely to satisfy even those among his opponents who reject the armed rebellion, since it made no apology for the arrests of peaceful activists or for airstrikes that have destroyed neighborhoods. Mr. Assad gave no sign of acknowledging that the movement against him was anything more than a foreign plot or had any goals other than to inflict suffering and destroy the country. Before the speech, Lebanese media outlets close to the Syrian government reported, citing unnamed sources, that Mr. Assad would be much more conciliatory, offering to share some power with the armed opposition. But if anyone close to Mr. Assad was pushing that view, it did not make it into the speech he delivered.
“They killed the intellectuals in order to afflict ignorance on us,” Mr. Assad said. “They attacked the infrastructure in order to make our life difficult, they deprived children from school in order to bring the country backward.” Instead, Mr. Assad repeated his longstanding assertions that the movement against him was driven by “murderous criminals” and terrorists financed by rivals such as Qatar and Saudi Arabia with American blessing.
He added, “The enemies of the people are the enemies of God, and the enemies of God will burn in hell.” “Who should we negotiate with — terrorists?” Mr. Assad said. “We will negotiate with their masters.”
Mr. Assad has framed the uprising as an attack by the West and its allies, and the members of the exile opposition leadership as puppets of their foreign supporters, including Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United States, which has offered what it calls nonlethal support and recognized the main opposition body, now known as the National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces. The main opposition body, the National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, issued a statement calling the speech “a pre-emptive strike against both Arab and international diplomatic solutions.”
There was little immediate reaction in Russia, where the speech came on the eve of the Orthodox celebration of Christmas on Monday.
But Boris Dolgov of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Eastern Studies said the speech reflected a new push by Russia and other nations to resolve the crisis.
Mr. Dolgov told the Voice of Russia radio station that Mr. Assad was correct to assert in his speech that the first step toward a resolution of the civil war must be the cessation of aid for armed rebel groups, adding that the current situation was “complex, but not a dead end.”
In Midan, a contested neighborhood of southern Damascus, a shopkeeper said that Mr. Assad’s speech had dashed his hopes that the president would end the conflict.
“He divided Syrians in two camps, one with him who are patriots and one against him who are criminals, terrorists and radicals,” said the shopkeeper, who gave only a nickname, Abu Omar, for safety reasons. “He doesn’t see Syrians who are patriots but don’t like him, and want to have another president in democratic, fair elections.”
Mr. Assad, whose family has ruled Syria for 42 years, said Sunday that he was open to dialogue with “those who have not sold Syria to foreigners,” most likely a reference to tolerated opposition groups that reject armed revolution, such the National Coordinating Body for Democratic Change. But his speech appeared unlikely to satisfy even those opponents, since it made no apology for the arrests of peaceful activists or for airstrikes that have destroyed neighborhoods. Nor did he acknowledge that his opponents sought anything but ruin for Syria.
“They killed the intellectuals in order to inflict ignorance on us,” Mr. Assad said of his opponents. “They deprived children from school in order to bring the country backward.”
Some armed rebel groups have used techniques that randomly target civilians, like car bombs, and there are foreign fighters among the rebels. But most of the armed movement is made up of Syrians who took up arms during the uprising or defected from the armed forces.Some armed rebel groups have used techniques that randomly target civilians, like car bombs, and there are foreign fighters among the rebels. But most of the armed movement is made up of Syrians who took up arms during the uprising or defected from the armed forces.
In his speech, Mr. Assad thanked officers and conscripts and vowed that he would stay by their side, apparently seeking to dispel speculation that he will flee the country. He spoke against a backdrop of snapshots that was reminiscent of montages that the opposition shows of people killed by the government. Mr. Assad thanked military officers and conscripts in the speech and vowed to stay by their side, seeking to dispel speculation that he would flee the country.
When he finished the crowd chanted, “With our souls, with our blood, we defend you, Assad,” and vowed to be his “shabiha,” the term that has come to designate pro-government militias that have attacked demonstrators. The audience of government officials and university students at the opera house chanted, “With our souls, with our blood, we defend you, Assad,” and vowed to be his “shabiha,” a term that has come to mean progovernment militias that have attacked demonstrators.
Scores of people then rushed toward him with an almost aggressive frenzy. Bodyguards pushed them back to form a phalanx that slowly escorted Mr. Assad through the crowd. When the president finished speaking, scores of people rushed frantically to greet him, and his bodyguards formed a phalanx to slowly escort Mr. Assad through the crowd.
Many observers wryly noted on social media that the opera house was a fitting setting for the speech. Several observers noted in social media postings that the opera house seemed a fitting setting for such a speech.
“It was operatic in its otherworldly fantasy, unrelated to realities outside the building,” Rami G. Khouri, of the Beirut-based newspaper The Daily Star, wrote on Twitter. “It was operatic in its otherworldly fantasy, unrelated to realities outside the building,” Rami Khouri, the editor of the Beirut-based Daily Star newspaper, wrote on Twitter.
Mr. Assad said the first step in his plan would be for foreign countries to stop financing the rebels; then his government would put down its weapons, he said — although he reserved the right to continue to fight terrorism, which his government has defined as nearly any opponent.

Reporting was contributed by Hania Mourtada from Beirut, an employee of The New York Times from Damascus, Syria, Eric Schmitt from Washington and Ellen Barry from Moscow.

Next would come national dialogue, but only with groups Mr. Assad termed acceptable; then a constitution approved by referendum; then a coalition government. There was no mention of holding elections before Mr. Assad’s term expires in 2014.

Hania Mourtada contributed reporting.