Defiant Assad Rules Out Talks With Rebels

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad issued a defiant call to war to defend the country against what he called a foreign-inspired rebellion, ruling out talks with rebels and rejecting international peace efforts for a political plan of his own that keeps him in power.

The proposal, made Sunday in Mr. Assad's first national address in six months, dims any chance of a quick resolution to the longest, deadliest and most complicated of the Middle East's Arab Spring revolts.

After the speech to a cheering audience of supporters in Damascus, international critics repeated calls for Mr. Assad, whose family's four-decade rule of Syria sparked an uprising in 2011, to step down. A U.S. State Department spokeswoman called his proposal for political reforms "another attempt by the regime to cling to power."

Bashar al-Assad waved to supporters after his Sunday speech.

The latest sign of defiance from Damascus is expected to fuel debate among the opposition's international backers. The U.S., its European allies and Arab countries opposed to Mr. Assad are split on whether to move more aggressively to help rebels defeat his regime militarily or force both a scale-back in the fighting and then political negotiations, analysts and diplomats say.

It is also likely to intensify talks between the U.S. and Russia, which acknowledged last week Mr. Assad was unlikely to willingly concede power, on how to navigate the crisis, analysts said.

Mr. Assad appeared to suggest he won't cooperate either way. He said he was determined to fight, and ruled out a political settlement except on his own, specific terms. Critics viewed his comments as the harshest declaration of war against the opposition yet.

"Fighting will now increase substantially, which will wear down both sides but I doubt produce the conditions for a viable solution," said Andrew Tabler, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

He added: "Assad is now repeating an old, ruthless pattern: escalating defiantly to test exactly where the red line is, and forcing the international community to give concessions in its desire for a political settlement."

The political plan Mr. Assad laid out fell far short of the opposition's demand for him to step down. It also appeared to undercut the latest round of international diplomacy, spearheaded by Algerian diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi, to bring the regime and opposition toward a political settlement.

"We don't want anyone to come to Syria to tell us what should be done for a political operation," Mr. Assad said, less than two weeks after meeting with Mr. Brahimi in Damascus. "Everyone who comes to Syria knows [that] Syria accepts advice, but doesn't take dictation."

Many Syrians said any hope they had for a resolution of the conflict through a political deal faded after his comments. The Syrian Opposition Coalition, a group that has gained political recognition from more than 100 countries, called the speech "a pre-emptive strike against both Arab and international diplomatic solutions equally."

In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said: "His initiative is detached from reality, undermines the efforts of Joint Special Representative Lakhdar Brahimi, and would only allow the regime to further perpetuate its bloody oppression of the Syrian people."

The foreign ministers of Turkey, the U.K. and the European Union dismissed Mr. Assad's speech as a repeat of old promises and reiterated calls for him to resign. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said of Mr. Assad: "It seems he's locked himself up in a room and only reads the intelligence reports presented to him."

Rebels in a ruined part of Aleppo.

Mr. Assad spoke at the Damascus Opera House, at the capital's central Oumayad Square, an unusual location for presidential speeches, which are usually held at the university auditorium or the parliament building. Syrians said roads in the area were shut off on Sunday in apparent preparation for the speech. Many Syrians described Mr. Assad's choice of forum as ironic, saying the president staged political theater while war raged in the suburbs around Damascus.

Syria's conflict has seen at least 60,000 people killed, according to United Nations data. Millions of Syrians were displaced as a political rebellion demanding change in March 2011 widened into a civil war, pitting Syrian army units against armed civilians and defectors, an insurgency that whittled at the military and took over large parts of northern and eastern Syria.

Neighboring countries, hosting the bulk of the half a million Syrians made refugees by the war, were drawn in as states took sides along sectarian lines, either with Mr. Assad's Shiite-linked Alawite regime or the Sunni-majority rebel movement.

The rebels haven't secured any significant territory since the summer, and Mr. Assad's regime has remained strong.

The military is intact, no full army unit having joined the rebels, despite thousands of individual defections.

The rebels' last military offensive, on Aleppo in July, is one many rebels consider a failure even though regime forces have been expelled from much of the city.

Like other cities where rebels have taken their fight, much of Aleppo, including its historic souks and citadels, has been crushed by aerial bombardment. Residents question why the rebels started a fight they can't seem to finish.

Rebel supporters are hostile at Arab and Western states for not sanctioning the delivery of heavier weapons.

As the fighting grinds on, Islamist factions within the rebel insurgency are gaining power, influence and ground, despite a U.S.-led effort to blacklist them, sanction their leaders and warn regional actors against helping fund them.

Some officials in the region believe Jabhat al-Nusra, a Syrian rebel group the U.S. has designated an offshoot of al Qaeda in Iraq, is too powerful to sideline. That has raised fears in the region of what the future of Syria looks like, if and when the Assad regime is replaced.

The Obama administration opposes helping arm a chaotic insurgency that has repeatedly failed to bring order to its ranks and is cooperating with al Qaeda-linked fighters.

The Syrian regime, in the meantime, has escalated its use of weapons from artillery to aircraft to Scud missiles. People briefed on Mr. Assad's latest meeting with Mr. Brahimi, the special envoy, said the Syrian president insisted that only he could steer Syria out of the crisis, and would work to do so until his term ends in 2014. He would like to run again.

The plan Mr. Assad outlined Sunday proposes a two-phase political process that would result in an elected parliament, a new government and a national conference that would exclude much of the current opposition leading the battle against the government. He said regional and international countries should cut off funds and weapons supplies to the rebels, who would have to put down arms before a cease-fire could take effect and a political process begin.

In principle, the plan sounds broadly similar to the one Mr. Brahimi was pursuing to form a coalition government and move toward free parliamentary elections. The Geneva Agreement, named after a meeting of world powers last summer, makes no reference to what would happen to the president, a point Mr. Assad appeared to manipulate and mock.

Syria's President Bashar al-Assad spoke at the Opera House in Damascus in this still image taken from video on Sunday.

The agreement, backed by the U.N. Security Council, calls on the formation of a transitional government with full executive powers. That government, Mr. Brahimi envisioned, would slowly strip political, military and legal power away from the president, according to people briefed on the plan, which appeared like a distant possibility on Sunday. The process would sideline the president, meeting a rebel demand, without cajoling him into stepping down or giving up power until fair elections are held, a position Russia has insisted on.

"Transition from where to where, or from what to what?" Mr. Assad asked in the speech, in a new tone of defiance against mediation.

"Are we going to go from a free, independent country, to one under occupation? One with a state to one in chaos?"

The president appeared calm and confident, though looking slimmer, as he spoke dressed in a black suit and gray tie. These were his first lengthy public comments on the war since a television interview in November and his first public appearance in many months.

"We are now in a state of war in every sense of the word," he said, accusing rebels and terrorists of cutting off electricity, communications, fuel lines and bread supplies across Syria. Dozens of supporters swarmed the stage after the speech. The president, as he tried to exit, shook hands with some, who shouted, "God, Bashar and Syria, are enough."