Abstract
If Bashar al-Assad’s regime wants to survive in the Syrian civil war, it should be able to shape the meaning of its own actions in the conflict and efficiently convey them to the domestic and international audiences. In 2013, after two initial years of communication failures, the regime began delivering an assertive and coherent communication strategy that has created material and political support to al-Assad’s actions. This article analyzes the strategic narratives that the Syrian regime has used since the early outbreak of the civil war and it question the significance of strategic narrative in crisis management.
President Bashar al-Assad’s crisis communication strategy was initially a failure that largely contributed to escalate the demonstrations and polarize the Syrian society. The implausible and amateurish strategic narrative conceived by the regime in early 2011 was insufficient and unable to convene with the citizens on the meaning of the regime’s proposals of political reform. Thus, once the regime found itself unable to communicate verbally, violence became the sole communication tool that was universally understood in its own terms by the actors of the protests. With hindsight, this initial communication failure made the regime’s actions and policy proposals meaningless to its own citizens and unjustifiable to a large segment of the international community.
However, al-Assad promptly understood his communication problem and pragmatically addressed it by accepting advices on communication by Iran and other allies and, as the Syria Files released by WikiLeaks shows by hiring public relations (PR) and consulting firms (Booth, Mahmood, & Harding, 2012). Consequentially, by early 2012, the regime was capable of promoting a new successful strategic narrative domestically and internationally. Since then, al-Assad has been able to own the crisis and shape its narrative. As a result, the regime has increased its supporters and, in spite of accusations of having carried out crimes against the humanity, it has gained legitimacy as non-Islamist force in the Syrian civil war (Amster, 2012, p. 1443).
This article will first assess the significance of strategic narrative in the case of the Syrian regime crisis management, then it will present a concise literature review that also serves as proofs of the effectiveness of the regime narrative in the public opinion of the international audiences. Lastly, it will schematize al-Assad’s communication strategies during the civil war and it will attempt to show how the Syrian regime was able to align its narrative on the conflict to the ones of Western countries, thus giving them a pretense for not directly acting in the conflict against the Syrian regime.
Significance of Strategic Narrative
In the first 20 months following the outbreak of the Syrian civil war, 197,387 people have been killed, among them 62,347 were civilians, 34,060 rebel fighters, 21,343 non-Syrian jihadist, 43,396 regime forces, and 28,198 were from militias allied to the regime (Amster, 2012). In Syria nobody will win, because there is no victory that can justify these figures. However, someone will eventually have to succeed in the conflict, but until then the conflict will continue with its average rate of 60,000 deaths per year. To date, even though nobody is winning the war, many are succeeding in their own relative and limited agendas: al-Assad is surviving, al-Nusra Front is growing, the Islamic State (IS) is expanding and the Kurds are gaining more independence.
Victory is a subjective criteria and a matter of consciousness and perception, which can only be achieved when material achievements are sustained by an effective narrative and communication strategy (Simpson, 2013, p. 337). For instance, al-Assad is surviving also because he has been able to communicate and convince strategic audiences that he is the lesser evil in the conflict. Likewise, al-Nusra Front is successful because it has been able to communicate a cause in which people could believe in; and the success of the IS is an output of its capability to reach with its propaganda to a broader audience and gain foreign recruits and sponsors. Conversely, citizens and unorganized minorities are the big losers of the conflict because they suffer material losses and have no voice to express their will.
As it can be inferred, victory and success are subjective variables with little explanatory significance if decontextualized from the broader framework of a conflict. As Clausewitz argues, what matters in a war is strategy, “there is no such thing as victory. Part of strategic success lies in timely preparation for a tactical victory ... the rest of strategic success lies in the exploitation of a victory won” (Clausewitz, 1976, p. 363). This definition explains strategy as a dynamic process of preparation and exploitation of tactical achievements. The two phases of preparation and exploitation have both a physical and a cognitive aspect. Indeed, tactics and policies are decided upon the cognitive interpretation of the conflict and they aim to produce physical effects that contain psychological meanings. The physical effects, such as causalities and destruction, are permanent, but their meaning can change over time and in regards to different audiences.
The Syrian case shows us exactly how volatile the meaning of physical actions can be. For instance the Ghouta chemical attack that occurred on August 21, 2013 was perceived drastically differently among international audiences and domestic audiences. For the United States the use of chemical weapons was a red line that, if surpassed, could have been a casus belli to intervene in the crisis. Conversely for Russia, such an attack was a threat to its international campaign of nonintervention. However, for al-Assad and the Syrian opposition the attack was “just another deadly attack” among many others (Office of the Press Secretary, 2012). Not only there was no consensus on the meaning and on the causes of the Ghouta attack, but the cognitive significance of the attack also evolved with the passing of the time. For example, the United States first used the attack as an evidence of the brutality of the Syrian regime, but then, within a different cognitive framework of the conflict, it downplayed it whereby “red line strategy” became an embarrassment in its officialdom. Thus far, al-Assad is still materially more dangerous and deadly than the Islamist forces, but psychologically he is now perceived as a lesser evil (Bonsey, 2014). For this reason, the White House, which was on the verge of attacking al-Assad in 2012, began indirectly helping him by bombing its opponents. It is evident that al-Assad’s regime use of violence has a different psychological meaning for the broad international audience compared to the one it held before.
Al-Assad success and survival in the long term has been dependent on his ability to “own the crisis” and not to be owned by it. In other words, the Syrian regime has been able to shape the meaning of its own actions in the conflict and it has been able to justify them. Communication is a proxy variable that conveys the meaning of actions to the strategic audience but communication has to be coordinated in a complex patchwork of actions and meanings. This complex patchwork is the strategic narrative. In other words, as Emile Simpson argues, strategic narrative “is the explanation of actions,” where strategy “seeks to relate actions to policy” and narrative defines the policy outcome, which is “ultimately an impression upon an audience” (Simpson, 2013, p. 431). While communication happens during a definite interval of time, strategy happens in a broader time series:
For strategy to connect actions to policy it must therefore invest them with a given meaning in relation to its audiences, both prospectively and retrospectively. [ ... ] In this sense strategic narrative accompanies policy throughout the lifetime of the conflict (before, during and beyond the period of actual fighting): it explains policy in the context of the proposed set of actions in the abstract, and then explains those actions, having been executed, in terms of how they relate back to policy. (Simpson, 2013, p. 432)
As it can be inferred, strategic narrative is significant because it defines policies. Moreover, in a scenario like the Syrian crisis, which is a transboundary and sectarian conflict with high uncertainty in situational awareness and fog of war, physical actions tend not to have a universal meaning among the participants of the conflict and therefore strategic narrative becomes even more essential to define them. For instance this study will show that al-Assad’s regime initial strategic narrative was ineffective and consequentially all his initial actions and policies were ineffective; however, after that he changed his strategy to a more persuasive one, he has been able to “own” the crisis and secure gains made with his too often brutal policies.
Literature Review
Literature review is usually a prerequisite to a study, but in this case, it also serves the purpose of testing the argument that al-Assad’s strategic narrative has been effective in influencing the international audiences. There has been a marked shift among scholars and public opinion in favor of the Syrian regime’s strategic narrative. This shift has not been caused by the process of cumulative knowledge, but rather by shifting paradigms and cognitive interpretations of the conflict. Thus, this literature review does not only tell the state of knowledge, but it also asserts the “state of interpretation” of the conflict.
This study uses mostly primary sources such as official statements, speeches, and leaked documents in order to reconstruct al-Assad’s strategic narrative. However, with the purpose of seeing the effects of the regime’s narrative, this research focuses also on Western academic publications. This choice was taken because Western academia functions as a benchmark for the Syrian regime strategic narrative. If al-Assad is able to successfully convey its narrative and shape the public debate made in Western countries by scholars and academics, it means that its narrative is as much assertive and persuasive as it could ever get.
In the pre-crisis period Bashar al-Assad was perceived with a mixed feeling of hope and disappointment. The hopes were caused by his international and cosmopolitan profile that was thought to be more prone to liberal and democratic values. However, it soon became clear that al-Assad was not going to change the regime and, as Eyal Zisser pointed out in 2005, the Syrian leader became increasingly more dependent on the security apparatus and increasingly less democratic (Zisser, 2005). At the same time, as Rime Allaf argued in a paper published in 2004, al-Assad regime became more and more isolated in the international community after having decided to not collaborate with the United States on the “war on terror” (Allaf, 2004). Carmen Becker also wrote on the declining power of the Syrian regime in a paper published in 2006, where she concluded that the Ba’ath party’s influence and capability of mass mobilization were becoming weaker, while corruption and clientelism were delegitimizing the regime (Becker, 2006). Nevertheless, it can be argued that prior 2011, the regime was still perceived by most as stable and legitimized (Becker, 2006, p. 129).
However, after that the Arab Spring broke out in 2011, al-Assad’s survival was not taken for granted anymore. For instance, in 2011 Foreign Affairs published an article where al-Assad was defined as a “paper tiger” who is likely to follow the path of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, Hosni Mubarak, and Muammar Gaddafi (Goldstone, 2011). During 2011, much of the literature was focused on two fronts: understanding the causes of the Arab protests (e.g., Alanoud al-Sharekh, 2011 or Katerina Dalacoura, 2012), and estimating weather al-Assad was able to survive the riots or not (Byman, 2012).
Conversely, in 2012 it became clear that the Syrian regime was not collapsing as quickly as expected. During this year several report exposed the brutality of the regime (e.g., Amster, 2012), and prompted the international community to ponder an intervention in the Syrian crisis. Moreover, the files leaked by WikiLeaks and reported on The Guardian (Booth et al., 2012) and on other newspapers had a huge negative impact on the image of the regime. Furthermore, in 2012 the crisis became a full-fledged conflict and authors such as Philip Smyth (2012) started to underline that the situation was not as black and white as the Arab Spring paradigm of sultanism versus democracy made it appear.
In 2013, a paradigm shift on the interpretation of the conflict occurred and the narratives of the Western public opinion and officialdom started to diverge, with the former increasingly being more inquisitive and critical. During 2013, the Western audiences, followed by later their respective officialdoms, shifted their priorities from opposing al-Assad to countering the rising Islamist groups operating in the Syrian territory. As Roy Allison argued in 2013, Russia’s active public diplomacy (see Putin, 2013) played a pivotal role in supporting al-Assad and increasing the awareness of the Islamism threat among the Western audiences (Allison, 2013).
In order to understand the new geopolitical and cognitive scenario, scholars, and policymakers started to use a more pragmatic analytical approach to the conflict and by 2014 they started debating on whether al-Assad should be supported by the West against the radical Islamist forces or not. This shift in policies and analyses urged authors to question the previous American stance on the conflict (Bonsey, 2014), and it opened an ethical debate on the idea of a détente with al-Assad (Kenner, 2014; Traub, 2014).
Assad’s Strategic Narrative
This section focuses on the tactical moves that the Syrian regime made in order to implement its strategic narrative. A tactical move is defined as an act of communication, such as a presidential speech or a governmental statement, while strategic narrative serves to give a broader long-term meaning to the individual actions and relate them to a policy. Assad’s strategic narrative can be divided into three sections: crisis outbreak (from spring 2011), civil war (2012 and 2013) and détente (2014). The division is arbitrary and takes account of the three main cognitive frameworks of the Syrian civil war. In Table 1 is represented the yearly evolution of al-Assad’s strategic narrative.
Effectiveness of al-Assad’s strategic narrative
Table 1 has two columns that indicate whether the al-Assad’s strategic narrative has been effective or not. An effective narrative implies that al-Assad is able to invest his actions with a given meaning that is understood by his audiences, and therefore he is able to justify his actions and exploit their outcomes. Conversely, if the strategic narrative is not effective, the outcomes of his actions are not generalizable to the general public and therefore they are exploitable by other actors with a more effective and persuasive strategic narrative.
The two rows indicate if there has been convergence or segmentation among the strategic narratives of the different actors of the crisis. Convergence subsists if there is one strategic narrative that enjoys consensus from other participants or if there is alignment and coordination between the strategies of different participants. Convergence makes tactical actions and policies easily implementable and justifiable to the public. Conversely if there is segmentation of strategic narratives, there is polarization between the actors and the outcome of tactical actions can be perceived significantly differently among their respective audiences because there is no mainstream narrative. To summarize, what al-Assad needs in order to own the crisis is an effective strategic narrative that creates convergence. The worst scenario for him would be not having an effective strategy in a moment of convergence on someone else strategic narrative. The best and worst scenarios, as schematized in Table 1, occurred correspondingly in 2014 and 2011.
Crisis Outbreak
The countries affected by the Arab Spring had common problems that trigged protests, such as poverty, high unemployment, rampant corruption, regional and social inequalities, and deterioration of economic conditions (Dalacoura, 2012, p. 67). However, in retrospect is also evident that the developments of 2011 had “profoundly different causes, contexts and outcomes” (Dalacoura, 2012, p. 63). Al-Assad knew that his country was no Egypt or Lybia and therefore he wrongly believed that a scenario of social unrest would have not occurred in Syria. During the last three years of conflict, Assad has proven with “Machiavellian cynicism” (Smyth, 2012) to be a strong and rational leader; therefore his initial impasse was not caused by a lack of skills and capabilities, but rather by miscalculations and misperceptions. In 2011, Bashar al-Assad “enjoyed some genuine popularity” (International Crisis Group, 2011), but his biased strategic narrative soon polarized the domestic audience and escalated the conflict.
In Syria “demonstrators at first tentatively pushed the limits, progressively raised their demands and only gradually expanded the protest movement to most towns and cities across the country” (International Crisis Group, 2011, p. 1). During this phase of nonviolent protests and civil uprising, the regime responded with violence and arrests, but failed to communicate with the citizens. Only after 2 months of protests, al-Assad made his first public speech. However, his first speech made of 29 March at the People’s Assembly, was a huge communication failure that trigged a primary escalation of the conflict. In the speech, he made a rant full of propagandistic rhetoric that portrayed the protestors as saboteur and, ironically, accused them of delaying the reform process of the regime. Not only the citizens felt offended by the speech, but they also did not believe the conspiracy theory proposed by al-Assad, who said:
Syria today is being exposed to a big conspiracy, the threads of which stretch from far and close countries as it also has some threads inside the country [ ... ] the conspiracy depends, as far as its timing not form, on what is going on in the Arab countries. [ ... ] The conspirators are few in number, this is natural. Even we, in the government, did not know, like everybody else, and did not understand what was happening until acts of sabotage started to emerge. [ ... ] Then, things started to become clearer. They will say that we believe in the conspiracy theory. In fact there is no conspiracy theory. There is a conspiracy. (Al-Assad, 2011c)
The speech failed to endorse reforms and downplayed real problems such as corruption, it “stressed that the regime would not respond to pressure” from the citizens (International Crisis Group, 2011, p. 13). The narrative used by the regime in this speech was not effective and had the opposite outcome than the expected one. Soon after March 29 speech, protests broke out in Deraa and Latakia and frustration among citizens reached new heights even in Damascus (International Crisis Group, 2011, p. 15).
The regime strategic narrative was not convincing and had to be changed. In a second speech made at the inauguration of the new Syrian Cabinet on April 16 al-Assad made a call for national unity and reforms and stated that he would lift the state of emergency, created a corruption-fighting agency and expanded the decision-making circle. Most importantly he dropped the narrative of the global conspiracy and recognized his communication problem:
The most dangerous thing is the existence of contradiction between the direction we are moving in and the direction the people are moving in. The outcome in that case will be zero; and the achievement will be moving backward. The important thing, as I said, is to stress these channels of communication because the lack of communication with the citizens creates a feeling of frustration and a feeling of anger, particularly when there are daily needs and within the capacity of the state and yet we do not provide them. (Al-Assad, 2011b)
The speech was followed by some reforms; however, the security apparatus kept using violence and arrests against the protesters. When the citizens-journalists’ videos of the regime repression went viral on Internet, the regime efforts to deescalate became pointless. Arguably, the president’s second speech could have had a real impact if delivered in March, but by mid-April, demands from protesters had grown and trust vis-à-vis the regime diminished. Moreover al-Assad lost credibility in the “parts of the country that had experienced the worst of the security forces’ brutality” (International Crisis Group, 2011).
In late May the regime proceeded with a third wave of reforms: general amnesty, new election law and foundation of a national dialogue committee (International Crisis Group, 2011, p. 16). The reforms were followed by a third Presidential speech on June 20, at the Damascus University. In this long speech, al-Assad communicated directly to its citizens “in order to strengthen the interaction and spontaneity” of his messages, and recognized that there has been a timing problem in its communication strategy. He acknowledged the increase of violence, but once more he defended the security apparatus and blamed the rioters for being the cause of violence (Al-Assad, 2011a). In his speech the conspiracy narrative was dropped in favor of a new narrative against the rise of Islamism in the region. Rather than portraying the protestors as conspirators, he started to accuse them of being driven by an ideology which:
... kills in the name of religion, destroys in the name of reform, and spreads chaos in the name of freedom. It is very sad to see in any society in the world some groups that belong to other bygone ages, that belong to a period we do not live in and we do not belong to. (Al-Assad, 2011a)
As it can be inferred, al-Assad was well aware of his communication problems and errors in his strategic narrative. Indeed, only few months after the crisis outbreak, he tentatively changed narrative several times; however, in this first phase of the crisis he failed to talk to the broader audience and to the silent majority composed by non-ideologically driven citizens who were protesting for economic reasons. The regime developed a negative discourse that polarized the population in pro- and against-regime factions. The outcome of this narrative was the escalation of the protests and, just a month after his third speech, the civil unrest became an armed insurgency.
Civil War
Al-Assad’s negative discourse and lack of communication, together with the use of violence, escalated protests to the level of armed insurgency. In turn, insurgency escalated to a civil war between a heterogeneous group of insurgents and the pro-Assad population. The initial protests demanding more economic redistribution and democratic governance evolved into an armed conflict for regime change. To date, the ongoing phase of the Syrian civil war can be interpreted as second crisis trigged by the regime failure in managing the first crisis of civil uprising of early 2011.
Conversely, during the early stage of the second crisis (insurgency) al-Assad was able to promptly create a new proactive and assertive strategic narrative that consolidated his support among the population and the minorities who feared fundamentalism and sectarian conflicts. First, al-Assad sought to fix his communication problem, then he tried to gain support from minorities and lastly from the international community.
The regime communication became effective during the insurgency due to two reasons. First, the new polarized context was more familiar to the regime than the previous one of civil uprising and consequentially al-Assad was able to use his experience in policies of divide et impera and convince the “silent majority” of the Syrian population that the regime was the sole possible guarantor of law and order. Moreover, since the regime was under attack, violence became justifiable for the proregime strategic audience as legitimate defense.
Second, al-Assad acknowledged the previous mistakes and sought external advices from allies and public relations firms to elaborate a more persuasive strategic narrative. As shown by the private e-mails released by WikiLeaks in 2012, this PR effort traces back to mid-2011. Among the e-mails leaked from the presidential account “
Another e-mail shows that al-Assad received recommendations from Iran on the preparation of presidential speeches. In this e-mail sent by Hadeel al-Al 1 to the presidential account on December 31, 2011, Bashar al-Assad receives several advices written after a consultation with the “Iranian ambassador” on his communication strategy (The Guardian, 2012). In particular, Bashar was advised to talk to the Arab world to reaffirm the regional strategic role of Syria against Israel. WikiLeaks also exposed a private correspondence between Asma and Qatar Emir’s daughter, Mayassa al-Thani. In their e-mail exchange, Mayassa offers Qatar as a possible destination for exile and in December 2012 writes to Asma that “the opportunity for real change and development was lost a long time ago. Nevertheless, one opportunity closes, others open up—and I hope its [sic!] not too late for reflection and coming out of the state of denial” (Booth et al., 2012).
However, by December 2011, the denial phase of the Syrian regime was already over. With the rise of the armed insurgency, the Syrian regime had no more reasons to deny its unwillingness of reform or to deny the use of force. Indeed, in the new public narrative of the regime, the use of force was a legitimate tool of defense against Islamist forces and terrorism, while political reforms were the primary causes of instability in the country. Moreover, the conflict became increasingly of sectarian nature and al-Assad was therefore able to emphasize to the domestic and international audiences that he was the only legitimate actor capable of keeping the status quo and preventing chaos, state failure and Islamism.
Syrian minorities and international allies, such as Russia and Iran, quickly aligned with the regime’s new narrative and strengthen it with campaigns of public diplomacy. Conversely, at that time, Western countries were still affected by the hubris of the Libyan intervention and arguably failed to see the differences between the early Syrian civil unrest and the following insurgency phase. Thus, during all 2012 and 2013 al-Assad was pressured by the international community and countered by the Gulf States and the United States. Nevertheless, thanks to the assistance of Russia it was able to buy some time until Western states changed their perspective in early 2014.
Russia helped the Syrian regime because it shares a similar national interest and it has a similar strategic narrative and weltanschauung with Syria. Both Moscow and Damascus are pro non-interference and against US-led military interventions. Moreover, they share the same fear of Islamism and they both fear the rise of a sectarian conflict since they are representative of minorities Syria: al-Assad of the Alawites and Moscow of the Orthodox Church and of 10,000 Russian citizens who reside Syria (Allison, 2013, p. 802). For instance, the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in October 2012 that al-Assad is “a guarantor of the security of national minorities, among them Christians, who have been living in Syria for centuries” (Voltaire Network, 2012). Russia’s strategic narrative internationalized the issue of the “spread of transnational Islamist networks” and the rise of radical factions like Jabhat al-Nusra (Allison, 2013, p. 809). Moreover, in spring 2013, Moscow started to internationalize the problem of “foreign fighters” by supporting the claim of the Syrian regime that al-Qaeda’s branches were active in the conflict and they “brought into Syria militants from twenty-eight countries, including from Chechnya” (Allison, 2013, p. 810). Western public audiences only became partially aware of the problem with the bombing in Boston of April 2013 made by two expatriate Chechens, and later with the rise of the Islamic State (Allison, 2013, p. 814).
Moscow also helped to deter a Western-led military action in Syria and after the US Senate approved a bill to authorize the use of force against the Syrian government, in response to the Ghouta attack of August 21, 2013 (Menendez, 2013). The Russian support was both material and political. First, Russia gave to al-Assad long-range surface-to-air missiles (S-300) with a purpose of deterrence against the establishment of a no-fly zone. Second, Moscow opened negotiations with Syria on September 10 to discuss the destruction of chemical weapons, and therefore to communicate to the international audiences its good will to deescalate the crisis. Then, President Vladimir Putin wrote an op-ed on the September 11 issue of The New York Times urging President Barack Obama not to strike Syria and warned the United States:
[a] strike would increase violence and unleash a new wave of terrorism. It could undermine multilateral efforts to resolve the Iranian nuclear problem and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and further destabilize the Middle East and North Africa. It could throw the entire system of international law and order out of balance. (Putin, 2013)
Putin also mentioned his concern about the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant or the Islamic State, and about the increasing numbers of foreign militants fighting Syria. It is important to underline that these two concerns were still not felt as a threat by the American audience at the time. Thus, the Syrian–Russian strategic narrative effectively shaped the trends in the conflict and bought essential time to Damascus.
New Strategic Narratives
Meanwhile the Syrian civil war was continuing in a trend of polarization between pro-Assad forces and jihadist. The conflict has become dynamic, fluid and quickly mutating: borders and actors are indefinite and tactical advances are often followed by losses. However, as it can be inferred, the conflict nature has been the same since the outbreak of the insurgency in late 2011 and the radicalization and rise of jihadist forces were already an evident trend in 2012. Nevertheless, in 2014 the strategic audiences of Western countries radically changed their perceptions and cognitive understanding of the Syrian civil war. In 2014, their cognitive framework became similar to the Syrian one, and their strategic narrative started to have matching points with al-Assad’s.
This cognitive change was triggered by the transboundary escalation initiated in early 2014 by the Sunni jihadist group of the Islamic State (IS). The IS escalation caused the United States to question its earlier Syrian policy and drove it to publicly acknowledge that the Islamist threat, highlighted by al-Assad since early 2012, was real. Since the cognitive change occurred, the United States has closed an eye on al-Assad’s crimes and focused on degrading and destroying the Islamic State (Harris & Hudson, 2014). For instance, the United States has stopped financing an organization in charge of investigating on al-Assad’s war crimes and instead it started funding another in charge “to collect evidence of war crimes in Iraq by the Islamic State” (Lynch, 2014). On the field, the United States started bombing IS and al-Nusra forces both in Syria and in Iraq and thereby indirectly helping al-Assad regime to fight its opposition. When Secretary of State John Kerry was asked if the United States are coordinating with Damascus, he said that they were no but he choose to add “we [US] will certainly want to deconflict to make certain that they’re [Syrian regime] not about to do something that they might regret even more seriously. But we’re not going to coordinate” (Harris & Hudson, 2014). Deconflicting means that the United States will monitor al-Assad’s army, but not intrude with his operations against the opposition (Harris & Hudson, 2014). Syrian operations keep creating civilian deaths and did not differ from the ones carried out during the previous years of civil war.
The new US attitude toward Syria does not indicate a change in the American aims in the region, but rather it indicates a pragmatic change in the narratives that it uses to achieve its goals. This cognitive framework has opened a new window of opportunity for the United States and its allies to move away from the confining policy of “the red line” and gave them a situation where they could set new policies and rethink their strategic narratives on the Syrian civil war. The United States opted for a new narrative against the Islamic State that gives it a large leeway on what policies to implement. For instance, Washington is now excused from intervening in Syria against al-Assad and at the same time it is relieved by the burden of solving an enduring transboundary conflict that also serves its interest of eroding the regional power held by al-Assad and his allies.
In turn, while the United States is buying time on what to do with al-Assad, the latter has promptly seized the opportunity of having convergence on his strategic narrative and tried to open a diplomatic channel to establish cooperation with the United States against the IS. While formal cooperation has not yet being achieved, al-Assad was able to use a very effective public diplomacy campaign which created momentum against IS and diverged the attention of the public opinion from his misdeeds. The new Western strategic narratives are not pro-al-Assad, but they interpret him as lesser evil in the regional chaos. Likewise, al-Assad’s strategic narrative portrays him as a secular actor fighting against Islamist forces and as a guarantor of stability in the region.
Al-Assad has been empowered by this convergence in narratives and is now seeking to introduce a new narrative of détente and dialogue with the West. For example, when al-Assad was asked during an interview in November 2014 if he regretted the initial management of the crisis, he answered by saying:
We cannot say that we regret fighting terrorism since the early days of this crisis. However, this doesn’t mean that there weren’t mistakes made in practice. There are always mistakes. Let’s be honest: had Qatar not paid money to those terrorists at that time, and had Turkey not supported them logistically, and had not the West supported them politically, things would have been different. If we in Syria had problems and mistakes before the crisis, which is normal, this doesn’t necessarily mean that the events had internal causes. (Régis Le Sommier, 2014)
In his answer, he downplayed regime’s violence as an error and he pointed out the errors made by the international community and the inconsistency of the West. In his logic, since everybody has to be blamed, nobody is at fault. In the same interview, al-Assad reaffirms that his army is fighting IS with “boots on the ground,” in contrast to the United States, and therefore he is acting in the interest of the West (Régis Le Sommier, 2014). Once again the strategic narrative of the Syrian regime is pragmatically adapting to the current events and is communicating to the word that the Syrian state is fighting on the frontline the jihad, and that the country needs healing and reconstruction, which the regime is ready to provide (Kenner, 2014).
Conclusions
Al-Assad’s strategic narrative has become increasingly assertive and effective in creating material and diplomatic support for the regime. The regime was able to change its narrative and go through four different steps. First, in 2011, the regime was unable to manage the civil unrest and its communication failure contributed to escalate it. Second, in 2012, the insurgency and polarization created a situation where nobody was owning the crisis nor was able to create consensus on the strategic narrative. Third, in 2013, the regime effectively conveyed its strategic narrative to a part of international community and to a segment of its population. Fourth, in 2014, the strategic narrative of Western states converged and aligned with al-Assad’s narrative. To summarize, al-Assad moved from a situation where there was a convergence of narratives against him, to a situation of many polarized narratives and finally to a situation of convergence on his narrative.
This case of study also shows that communications are only tactical moves of a broader strategy that aims to persuade strategic audiences of the meaning of actions and polices. If actions are not supported in a broader assertive strategy, they are ineffective or are exploitable by enemies, as the events of 2011 show. Conversely, the narrative has to be coordinated with physical actions, otherwise no one will believe in it, as was the case with al-Assad in 2012. Another insight learned from this crisis is that time is relevant. The coordination between strategic narrative and tactical moves has to be quick and clear and hence the need to plan in advance for crises. For instance, lack of planning for a “civil unrests scenario” caused al-Assad to act slowly and indecisively, while when he was prepared to face the “insurgency scenario” he acted promptly and effectively with a long-term strategy. To conclude, it can be said that for al-Assad, a persuasive strategic narrative has been a necessary but not sufficient condition for his survival.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
The author would like to acknowledge the support, guidance and advice of Professor Chung Min Lee towards completing the research for this article.
1.
Hadeel al-Al is a US educated Syrian woman who repeatedly sent communication advices to al-Assad on his presidential e-mail. In an e-mail leaked she is referred as the director of the Syria Youth Commission for Volunteerism. For more information, see Booth et al. (2012) and WikiLeaks (
).