s This article draws on regime newspaper archives and the Arabic-language speeches of and interviews with Syrian president Bashar al-Asad over the last two decades to track how Syrian governmental rhetoric on the question of “terrorism” has changed over time. Engaging with the literature on how ideas, technologies, and contentious repertoires diffuse and spread and how regimes learn from each other, I show how the Asad regime has moved from a discourse that saw “terrorism” as a Western and/or Israeli concept used to delegitimize primarily Palestinian and Lebanese resistance sponsored by Damascus to a discourse that embraces the rhetoric of the “war on terror” in order to legitimize the regime's counterinsurgency policies during the current conflict. I argue that this rhetorical shift is dependent on the ethno-sectarian identity of the population in question through a comparison of regime rhetoric on three separate uprisings in recent Syrian history: the current uprising (2011–present); the Kurdish uprising of 2004; and the Druze uprising in 2000. Since the current uprising is seen as a predominantly Sunni Arab affair, the Syrian regime has used “war on terror” rhetoric in ways that it did not during the Kurdish and Druze uprisings. I then situate this rhetorical move in time as a post-9/11 development by comparing current regime rhetoric with that of the Hafez al-Asad regime's rhetoric during the uprising centered in Hama in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

中文翻译：

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巴沙尔·阿萨德如何学会停止担忧并热爱“反恐战争”

本文利用政权报纸档案以及过去二十年叙利亚总统巴沙尔·阿萨德的阿拉伯语演讲和采访，追踪叙利亚政府在“恐怖主义”问题上的言论如何随着时间的推移而发生变化。通过研究关于思想、技术和有争议的手段如何扩散和蔓延以及政权如何相互学习的文献，我展示了阿萨德政权如何从将“恐怖主义”视为西方和/或以色列概念的话语转向主要是取消大马士革发起的巴勒斯坦和黎巴嫩抵抗运动的合法性，以支持“反恐战争”言论，以使该政权在当前冲突期间的反叛乱政策合法化。我认为，通过比较叙利亚近期历史上三起不同起义的政权言论，这种言论的转变取决于相关人口的民族宗派身份：当前的起义（2011年至今）； 2004年库尔德起义；以及2000年的德鲁兹起义。由于当前的起义被视为主要是逊尼派阿拉伯人的事件，叙利亚政权以库尔德和德鲁兹起义期间没有的方式使用“反恐战争”言论。然后，我将当前政权的言论与哈菲兹·阿萨德政权在 1970 年代末和 1980 年代初以哈马为中心的起义期间的言论进行比较，将这一言论举措及时定位为 9/11 后的发展。