C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 DAMASCUS 004092

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

PARIS FOR WALLER; LONDON FOR TSOU

E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/12/2015
TAGS: PGOV PREL SY LE
SUBJECT: SYRIANS DO A LITTLE DAMAGE CONTROL ON BASHAR
SPEECH, AMID NEGATIVE REACTION EVEN AT HOME

Classified By: Acting Deputy Chief of Mission, William Roebuck, per 1.4
b,d.


1. (C) Summary: Political and economic contacts in
Damascus have largely written off the August 15 speech of
President Bashar al-Asad as ill-timed and reflecting the
young Syrian leader's inexperience and lack of political
judgment. The speech has prompted renewed personal criticism
of Bashar that had subsided in the past six months. Popular
reaction to the speech, while harder to guage, has been more
positive. Recognizing that there was a need for damage
control, the regime has used FM Mu'allim and Minister of
Information Mohsen Bilal to argue that the speech had been
misunderstood and that Asad had not intended to criticize,
even implicitly, fellow Arab leaders. Despite momentary
criticism the speech has stirred up -- together with the
damage control currently underway -- the regime is unlikely
to have many serious second thoughts. Asad seems to feel
vindicated with his hard-line policy on Lebanon, his support
for Hizballah, and his alliance with Iran. End Summary.



2. (C) SPEECH SEEN AS TOO HARSH: The consensus among
political and economic contacts in Damascus is that President
Bashar al-Asad's strident August 15 speech was poorly timed,
misconceived, and, a failure. No one we spoke with liked the
speech or saw anything positive in it. (Comment: Popular
reaction to the speech, while harder to guage, has been
somewhat more positive, with some Syrians endorsing what they
understood to be Asad's criticisms of Arab leaders as
"sellouts", and applauding Asad for his responding with
passion to the high numbers of civilian casualties in
Lebanon.) Prominent attorney Jacques Hakim told A/DCM the
speech was "stupid and unbelievable." Dr. Samir AL-TAKI,
an advisor at the MFA and a protege of FM Walid Mu'allim,
said it succeeded in deepening Syria's isolation at a time
when it was possible that diplomatic doors could have opened
up. AL-TAKI mentioned the canceled visit of German FM

Steinmeier to make his point. The speech also damaged
critical relationships with Saudi Arabia and Egypt, added
AL-TAKI.


3. (C) WRITTEN BY A "GANG OF FIVE": Hakim insisted that the
speech was "written by the Mukhabarrat." Elaborating on the
same point, AL-TAKI asserted that the "quartet" of SMI chief
Asif Shawkat, Ba'ath National Security Bureau head Hisham
Ikhtiyar, VP Farouk a-Shara'a, and Ba'ath Party DepSYG
Mohammed Saeed Bukhaytan had dominated the tone of the speech
just as they were dominating all other critical elements of
foreign and domestic policy. AL-TAKI suspected that VP
advisor (and former senior intelligence officer) Mohammed
Nassif Khairbek was at present offering support for the
hard-line views espoused by Asad in the speech.


4. (C) BASHAR-BASHING STARTS UP AGAIN: The speech has
provoked significant amounts of quiet anti-Bashar criticism,
which had subsided over the past six months. Several
contacts made the point that Bashar's father would never have
made such an ill-conceived speech. AL-TAKI likened the
rhetoric in the speech to the excesses of Ba'athist ideology
that had been evident in Syria before Hafez al-Asad took
power. The criticisms of Bashar as inexperienced, prone to
taking bad advice, making decisions that deepened Syria's
isolation and squandered its assets, have all been voiced
(privately) with renewed vigor in the wake of the speech.
People have also noted that Asad made himself look "silly" by
saying nothing during the crisis and making sure Syria stayed
completely out of the fighting, but then using his speech to
try to take some credit for Hizballah,s "victory."


5. (C) Kurdish human rights lawyer and Yekiti Party member
Faisal Badr said that he had not been surprised at Asad,s
aggressive tone, calling it a reflection of the Syrian
President,s disappointment and frustration at not being
included in negotiations regarding Lebanon. The tone also
reflected Syrian and Iranian crowing after Hizballah,s
victory, although in Badr's view, Syria is the weak link in
the Iran-Hizballah-Syria chain.


6. (C) BUSINESSMEN FEARFUL OF CONSEQUENCES: Imad Ghreiwati,
president of the Damascus Chambers of Industry, commented to
us that he was against the confrontational tone and stance
taken by President Asad in his August 15 speech.
Ghreiwati,s criticism was echoed by others in the Damascene

DAMASCUS 00004092 002 OF 002


business community we talked to in the last week. Firas
Azem, general manager of one of the three new private
insurance companies, was more pointed in his criticism and
more obviously concerned with how Asad,s sharpened rhetoric,
if pursued, could translate into increased isolation and a
degraded investment climate. Nejeeb Bazari, managing
director of Bazari Enterprises, opined that Asad lost support
in the business community because of his speech as
businessmen like himself that had been generally supportive
of the SARG stance during the conflict would not now agree
with gratuitously pursuing further confrontation. Bader
Shallah, scion of one of the leading Sunni business families,
was less directly critical of Asad but equally anxious for
the SARG to lower its rhetoric now that hostilities in
Lebanon had ended.


7. (C) SOME DAMAGE CONTROL EVIDENT: Recognizing apparently
that there was a need for damage control, the regime has
trotted out FM Mu'allim and Minister of Information Mohsen
Bilal to make soothing noises and provide some less negative
spin for the speech. Mu'allim was quoted in an interview
August 19 as saying that Asad was not referring to Arab
leaders -- contrary to the general impression at the time --
when he criticized as "half men" those who did not support
Hizballah in its fight against Israel. Bilal referred to
speech as "a reproach among brothers . . . at a time of
crisis" and emphasized that Syria enjoyed "brotherly"
relations with Egypt and Saudi Arabia.


8. (C) COMMENT: Despite recurring expectations that he
would use a particular speech to reach out to an
international audience and try to position himself as a
moderate and consensus builder, Bashar al-Asad has often
struck a harsh, defiant tone, especially in speeches that
have focused on Lebanon. His mid-November 2005 speech at the
University of Damascus, as well as one delivered the year
before to a group of Syrian expatriates, for example, came
off as unexpectedly strident. The common thread in these and
other bellicose Asad speeches is Lebanon. Since the passage
of UNSCR 1559, the regime has been fixated on preventing
Lebanon from slipping completely out of Syria's clutches and
on undermining efforts by PM Siniora and the March 14 group
to inch away from that long-standing Syrian embrace. Despite
momentary criticism the speech has stirred up here and in the
region -- together with the temporary damage control
currently underway -- the regime is unlikely to have many
serious second thoughts about continued confrontation,
bolstered as it is by Hizballah,s positive showing in the
fighting and now in the reconstruction aftermath. Asad seems
to feel vindicated with his hard-line policy on Lebanon, his
support for Hizballah, and his alliance with Iran, and to
believe that events and political developments in Lebanon
have proven -- and will continue to prove -- him right.







CORBIN