Syria Analysis: A 5-Point Guide to Assad Interview --- Is He Right To Declare Victory?

See also Syria Video & Transcript: President Assad's Interview with Al-Manar TV

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In his half-hour interview with Al-Manar TV, the outlet of Lebanese organisation and Syrian ally Hezbollah, President Assad said little of substance.

For example, there was no declaration --- despite earlier, misleading reports --- that Russian S-300 anti-aircraft missile systems were now in Syria. There was no substantial information, despite a long passage on the battle for Qusayr near the Lebanese border, on the military situation. There was no sign of a political move to break the deadlock over a proposed international "peace" conference, reinforcing the view that the conference is unlikely to happen. Certainly there was nothing about Syria's economic situation or the almost 40% of the population who have been displaced internally or abroad.

Instead, the significance of Assad's statements lay in the tone of victory, from the President's reply to Al-Manar's opening set-up question: "How have you managed to foil the plots of your opponents and enemies?"

The main reason for tipping the balance is the change in people’s opinion in areas that used to incubate armed groups, not necessarily due to lack of patriotism on their part, but because they were deceived. They were led to believe that there was a revolution against the failings of the state. This has changed; many individuals have left these terrorist groups and have returned to their normal lives.

But is Assad right to declare that victory? Or, rather, even if the political and military situations are far from resolved, can he put forth the impression that he is winning?

1. "WE ARE WINNING"....BUT WHAT?

For all his boasting, there is a weakness in Assad's rhetoric --- almost all of his "we are winning" rests not on the strengths of his regime and what it gives the Syrian people, but on the weaknesses of the opposition:

They ended up defeating themselves because they do not know Syria or understand in detail the situation. They started with the calls of revolution, but a real revolution requires tangible elements; you cannot create a revolution simply by paying money.

When this approach failed, they shifted to using sectarian slogans in order to create a division within our society. Even though they were able to infiltrate certain pockets in Syrian society, pockets of ignorance and lack of awareness that exist in any society, they were not able to create this sectarian division....

They also fell into their own trap by trying to promote the notion that this was a struggle to maintain power rather than a struggle for national sovereignty.

Fair enough, but --- thinking back to the start of the mass protests in March 2011 --- what can Assad offer his people with "victory"? A better way of life? An address of the political demands for recognition and reform? Stability and security? This was almost the sum total of the President's "positive" response:

There is no doubt that as events have unfolded Syrians have been able to better understand the situation and what is really at stake. This has helped the Armed Forces to better carry out their duties and achieve results.

The cold fact is that, even if Syrians do not support the opposition, there is little that Assad can offer many of them, especially in the near-future. So instead, he has to find a diversionary campaign.

2. THE FIGHT AGAINST ISRAEL...

Almost as soon as Assad denounced the "terrorists", he was putting forth the wider menace behind them:

Everything that is happening at the moment is aimed, first and foremost, at stifling the resistance [to Israel]. Israel’s support of the terrorists was for two purposes. The first is to stifle the resistance; the second is to strike the Syrian air defense systems. It is not interested in anything else.

Assad dangled the prospect of military action in the Golan Heights, occupied by Israel since the 1967 Arab-Israeli War:

There is clear popular pressure to open the Golan front to resistance. This enthusiasm is also on the Arab level; we have received many Arab delegations wanting to know how young people might be enrolled to come and fight Israel. Of course, resistance is not easy. It is not merely a question of opening the front geographically. It is a political, ideological, and social issue, with the net result being military action....

I believe that a state that opposes the will of its people for resistance is reckless.

Of course, this is bluster: Assad will not be picking any fights in the Golan, and Israel is not going to be leading any "foreign" campaign against Damascus --- its airstrikes, quietly discussed with countries like the US, have been in support of the effort to "contain" and degrade Assad's military.

Instead, the Syrian President is dangling "Israel" in an attempt to ramp public support, which cannot really be secure by any positive prospects for now, for the fight against the primary enemy of the insurgency --- that is why the fight in Qusayr, the town near the Lebanese support, has symbolic as well as military significance.

Which brings us to....

3. ...ALONGSIDE HEZBOLLAH

It is no coincidence that this was Assad's first appearance on Al-Manar, Hezbollah's broadcaster to the region as well as the Lebanese people. This was the political complement to the recent recognition by Damascus of Hezbollah's role in the military conflict.

Assad, with his own denunciations of "foreign intervention", was still careful to limit that recognition to Hezbollah's involvement in the battle for Qusayr:

Logically speaking, if Hezbollah or the resistance wanted to defend Syria by sending fighters, how many could they send --- a few hundred, a thousand or two? We are talking about a battle in which hundreds of thousands of Syrian troops are involved against tens of thousands of terrorists....

Why haven’t we seen Hezbollah fighting in Damascus and Aleppo? The more significant battles are in Damascus and in Aleppo, not in Al-Qseir. Al-Qseir is a small town in Homs, why haven’t we seen Hezbollah in the city of Homs?

That statement is, to be blunt, a lie. There is ample evidence that Hezbollah fighters have been in the cities of Homs and Aleppo, and possibly southern Damascus, and indeed have been dying there.

But Assad's message is a dual, linked one: Syrian forces will secure Syria, and Hezbollah's place will be alongside Damascus in a wider "just" effort in the region --- against Israel and the "foreign" menace:

[This is] a global war waged against Syria and the resistance. We have absolute confidence in our victory, and I assure them that Syria will always remain, even more so than before, supportive of the resistance and resistance fighters everywhere in the Arab world.

4. "NOT LOSING" IS NOT THE SAME AS "WINNING"

All of this is a smoke screen for the realities of "victory".

Many in the media, following the pendulum of sweeping declarations, have been saying that --- far from the narrative of Assad's fall from power --- the regime is now asserting its supremacy.

The cold, stark reality, however, is that after two weeks, the Syrian military and Hezbollah are still trying to take a single town, Qusayr, near Lebanon. The eventual takeover of the town is not to be minimised, but it is not the same as moving across provinces and pushing back most of the insurgency's gains since last year. Large swathes of the north and east of the country will remain in the hands of the opposition, even if that opposition is more a collection of individual, often divergent groups rather than a single entity.

And even Qusayr needs to be put in context --- its strategic significance is as a protector for Homs, 18 miles away. Its capture by the regime will thus bolster "not losing" Syria's main cities rather than "winning" across the country.

5. SO IT'S ASSAD V. "INTERVENTION"

Assad is shrewd enough to recognise this. So his "victory" declaration was tied not as much to military developments as his political calculations.

The danger for the Syrian regime is that the US, European states, and Turkey will finally ramp up their open military support of the insurgency, complementing the effort of Arab States such as Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

All the chatter about an international "peace" conference is merely the prelude to this decision. Officials within the Obama Administration favouring a stepped-up effort said as much this week: if Assad does not agree to step aside for a transitional government at the conference, then the US would consider --- and be bolstered in its consideration of --- a no-fly zone.

And that message complemented the public signal from the European Union, as it lifted the embargo on arms to the insurgents --- Britain and France are now able to openly supply the fight against Assad.

Such an intervention is likely to tip the military balance against the Assad regime. But it faces a political question: is the aim merely to pressure and contain the President or to topple him?

And that question in turn leads to others: is there an effective political group, given the tensions and fragementing within the opposition, that can replace Assad? Will the "extremists", rather than the "moderates", win? Will the fall of the regime send destabilising ripples across the Middle East?

Assad is betting that all these questions can be turned into doubts to block further intervention for the opposition. Last night's declarations were his chips to support that bet.