Then came special envoy Lakhdar Brahimi's mission, which brought Assad an additional gain. The sticking point in the Geneva accord between Russia and the US was the fate of Assad. Having already softened their position on preserving elements of the regime, the Russians began pushing for further American concessions on the role of Assad himself. After all, the Kremlin maintained, Assad would not agree to step down, nor do we have the ability to pressure him to do so. Accordingly, Brahimi's camp, in line with Russia's position, began floating the possibility of Assad remaining at least until 2014.
Washington seemingly objects to Assad staying on, but is signaling eagerness to reach a political solution for fear of extremists among the rebels gaining more strength as the war drags on. An unnamed senior US official expressed how the administration now looks at Syria. "Extremists will continue to fight," he told reporters in London, unless the voice of moderates prevailed. "Continued fighting benefits extremists on both sides," he said, which is why "a political solution must be reached as quickly as possible." The official then added, "We have been saying since January 2012 that there were Al-Qaeda elements in Syria. It's the only thing we've agreed with Assad on."
Assad reads such statements and probably sees them as confirmation that the US has blinked and is just as worried about Sunni Islamists as it was about the prospects of him remaining in power. Therefore, he perhaps calculates, Washington could yet be forced to come around and negotiate with him. After all, US officials were now openly agreeing with Russian, Iranian and Syrian statements that there can be no military victory by either side in Syria. If that's the case, then the message for Assad was that he would not likely be removed by force, and therefore would remain part of the political landscape.
This explains the second reason for the timing of Assad's address. Recognizing that the US was not going to reverse its policy and arm the opposition, Assad figured that his strategy of forcing a stalemate could still work. Recent regime successes in parts of Homs, as well as its counteroffensive in the Damascus suburbs, worked to his advantage. They substantiated his message that his position remained sturdy, at least in Damascus and Homs, where he has relied on direct assistance from Hezbollah, as well as in his communal stronghold in the coastal region.
The longer he can force a stalemate, the better the chance Washington will bend more still. If it has come to accept continuity of regime elements and institutions after a mere two years of fighting, who knows what it might concede in another year? To that effect, the regime's information campaign is in full swing in order to shape the perception that this is the inevitable endgame. Damascus is already putting out the message that Arab states are revising their position. The idea is that with the Obama administration's second-term cabinet stacked with former advocates of engagement with Assad, the US, too, will come around.
Assad's speech itself, then, was part of a broader information campaign. Far from being irrational, it is based on a reading of Washington's fecklessness. The Obama administration claimed that Assad's address undermined Brahimi's mission. But its only response is to go ahead with yet another meeting with Brahimi and the Russians, continue support for the envoy's initiative, and double down on the Geneva framework, with the aim of "encouraging parties to be serious" about creating "an alternative political reality." Unfortunately, it is Washington that seems to be inhabiting an alternative political reality-a dreamworld.
