Israel Matzav

Assad solved

Tony Badran has a good laugh at the expense of all the so-called 'Syria experts' who can't figure out why 'Assad the Reformer' (yes, Hillary, I guess he's including you as an expert too) doesn't just reform already. Really, says Badran, Assad is quite an open book - if only you're willing to read the page and not rewrite it yourself.

The common denominator here is the analysts’ penchant to insulate Assad and justify his actions, always preferring to give him a pass, so as not to cause the collapse of their own intellectual house of cards. Needless to say, Assad dispelled this nonsense in his speech, specifically ridiculing how Westerners always relay their concerns to him about the negative impact of his entourage on the “reform” process. (David Ignatius, who even anticipated that Assad would stage a coup against his own family's regime, is a good example).

But analysts chose to ignore that part of the speech, preferring to stick to their own categories and misconceptions, much to Assad’s delight. After all, Assad's peculiar genius is in sitting back and letting his Western interpreters read whatever they wished into his intentions regarding peace and the relationship with the US, especially as it didn’t imply any actual commitment on his part. Meanwhile, for anyone who bothers to look closely, Assad has been rather clear that his conceptions and those of his interlocutors or of the analysts are two wildly different things.

In brief, it should now be crystal clear that the prevailing analytical paradigm is deeply flawed. This is precisely what led that anonymous US official last year to bemoan how not only does the Obama administration “not understand Syrian intentions,” but, in fact, “[n]o one does, and until we get to that question we can never get to the root of the problem.”

In reality, the Assad regime’s behavior and intentions are not at all perplexing, but are rather plain to see. However, that requires identifying the patterns and methods this regime has employed for decades.

It seems that the analysts have their heads so deeply into Assad's rear ends that they can't see what's going on right in front of him. Right, Hillary?

Labels: Bashar al-Assad, Hillary Clinton, Syrian reform

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 7:41 PM