ABSTRACT
Syrian President Bashar al-Asad's speech to the nation on March 30, 2011, his first to address the protests in Syria that intensified following the debacle in Deraa in mid-March, was a seminal moment in modern Syrian history. In late 2010 and early 2011, Syria seemed to be a fairly stable place, especially when compared to Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen, where events of the so-called Arab spring were beginning to percolate. In response to the growing protests, the Syrian government announced a series of reforms on 24 March 2011. This seemed to repeat the pattern established by fallen regimes in Tunis and Cairo as well as other governments in the Arab world experiencing problems at the time. A former high-level Syrian government official who was a part of the decision-making apparatus at the time said that Bashar made a terrible strategic mistake that week by not deciding what's the nature of this conflict.
