Tony Badran

Syrian opposition activists walk past a poster showing a dead man reportedly killed by the Assad regime during the opening session of a three-day meeting in Antalya to discuss democratic change and voice support for the revolt. (AFP photo/Adem Altan)
As hundreds of Syrian dissidents and opponents of the regime of Bashar al-Assad gathered in the Turkish city of Antalya for the Conference for Change in Syria, the regime was running its own parallel sideshow, announcing measures that purportedly address demands of the Syrian protest movement. However, given previous such measures, there is every reason to suspect that this is yet another tactical ruse by Assad, aimed primarily at foreign actors. In the end, these announcements are not harbingers of change in the regime’s attitude. The Assad regime always was and remains incapable of reform.

On Tuesday, Assad issued a typically ambiguous decree, wrongly reported in the media as a “general amnesty,” reducing sentences for certain crimes and releasing an unspecified number, and category, of prisoners. Also, official Syrian sources leaked that Assad would be making a speech “in the next couple of days” (his first public address in two months) in which he would announce the establishment of a committee to prepare for a conference for “national dialogue.”

Dissidents have been understandably skeptical, given that the announcements came as the regime’s tanks were shelling cities such as Homs and surrounding villages like al-Rastan and Talbiseh, and the gathering in Antalya quickly dismissed Assad’s moves.
There are, of course, plenty of other reasons for skepticism and suspicion. Syrian activists view Assad’s latest ploy in the same light as his previous “concessions” of supposedly lifting the emergency law (while proceeding with the brutal crackdown as usual) and extending an ambiguous offer of citizenship to an unspecified number of “stateless Kurds” (a move that aimed to neutralize the Kurds and split them off from the opposition).

On the one hand, no one really knows who is actually included in the decree – an opaqueness exacerbated by the deliberately convoluted legal jargon, the numerous exceptions it lists, as well as by the discrepancy between the actual content of the decree and the way the official Syrian Arab News Agency reported it. On the other hand, as several rights activists have asked, are prisoners of conscience to be treated as common criminals? If so, will their sentences merely be reduced? And will their “crimes” even fall under the listed exceptions? (One such exception, for instance, would exclude the detained blogger Tall al-Malouhi.) None of this is clear.

The ambiguity, of course, is intentional, and is the standard modus operandi of the Assad dictatorship. The net result is to make all rights utterly arbitrary, dependent on the whims of Bashar al-Assad. In addition, the regime’s move aims at forcing Syrians to accept its categories and its classification of dissent as a crime.
Meanwhile, the announcement on the “national dialogue” is another marvel of Baathist theater. The committee tasked with preparing the national dialogue conference, which Assad will supposedly unveil in his upcoming speech, will be headed by that beacon of reform, Vice President Farouq al-Sharaa, and it will include “independents” such as regime publicist Ibrahim Daraji, alongside lackeys of the Baath.

As for whom the regime will invite to this dialogue, anonymous Syrian sources told AKI that it will likely be “neutral” and “independent” figures, who would be invited in a personal capacity, and not as representatives of any opposition group. The Baath Party, and the sham parties of the allied National Progressive Front, will also participate. However, it has been explicitly announced already that Article 8 of the constitution, which stipulates that the Baath is the sole “leader of the state and society,” will not be discussed, thereby removing all prospects for political pluralism and participation from the agenda.
In addition, the regime has specified that its “dialogue” will be limited by “the ceiling of the nation” – code, according to some dissidents, that allows the regime to classify and handpick interlocutors, and to set the parameters of the dialogue.

Assad had tried all of these tactics on a provincial level, attempting to avoid elevating the matter to a national level (also one reason why he has made no national address since March). However, now that the opposition is beginning to gain a more visible profile on the international scene, possibly emerging as a credible interlocutor in Western capitals, Assad wants to make sure to prolong the indulgence he has so far enjoyed.
In fact, according to Al-Sharq Al-Awsat's sources, the recent surprise visit to Iraq by the Syrian foreign minister was in order to relay a message to the US, through the Iraqis, that “the Syrian leadership is intent on actualizing the required reforms as quickly as possible.” Also, Assad was likely trying to placate the Turks, who have expressed increasing impatience with his lack of responsiveness to their advice.

However, as evident from the initial American (and, to some extent, even Turkish) reactions, it does not seem that anyone is impressed by Assad’s ploy. Nevertheless, the Syrian dictator’s maneuver only highlights the absurdity of the West’s, particularly the US’s, call on Assad to “lead the transition.”
This policy was always doomed to fail miserably. As activist Razan Zaytouneh put it yesterday, the Assad regime’s “repressive mindset is incapable of change.” Washington needs to finally acknowledge this fact publicly and proceed with crafting a new policy for a post-Assad Syria.
 
Tony Badran is a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He tweets @AcrossTheBay.