BEIRUT — In his first address in two months, President Bashar Assad of Syria on Monday offered a national dialogue that he said could usher in change to a country where his party and family have monopolized authority for four decades.
Deep skepticism greeted the proposal, and even some who were sympathetic to the leadership said they doubted Assad was ready to surrender absolute power, at least for now. But as the country wrestles with its gravest crisis in a generation, the question remains: If the government is in fact sincere, whom would it talk to?
An opposition abroad, without set leaders or programs, which sought to organize in meetings in Turkey and Europe, has ruled out engaging the government. Many activists who claim to speak for a street shaken by three months of protests are too afraid to surface aboveground. Even opposition figures in Damascus who have talked with officials lately said Monday that they would not attend the dialogue Assad outlined until security forces ended their crackdown.
The government, which long equated almost any dissent with sedition, has suggested it may choose whom it will speak to — Assad mentioned the possibility of more than 100 people, although the government has yet to say who they may be.
The divide seemed to underline the criticism voiced by many opposition activists Monday: The proposal is a bid for time in a country that may be running out of it.
"The street hasn't managed to break the bones of the authority, and the authorities haven't managed to break the bones of the street," said Louay Hussein, an opposition figure in Damascus, the capital. "We're passing through an intractable period before the crisis."
Diplomats and opposition figures have spoken in darker tones lately about what may be ahead in Syria — a failed state perhaps, or sectarian conflict playing on Syria's potentially volatile diversity. While noting that the protests remain largely peaceful, U.S. officials acknowledge that the makings of an armed insurgency have begun to emerge. Despite promises to diplomats, Syrian officials have continued to preside over a crackdown that has killed more than 1,400 people, by activists' count.
One opposition figure warned of the prospect of a coming "civil war."
For days, Assad's speech was awaited in the hope that it would offer a crucial insight into the leadership's willingness to compromise in the face of the uprising and mounting pressure from Turkey, the United States and the European Union. Assad offered at least a theoretical path for change, even if the speech lacked specifics and delivered somewhat vague deadlines.
Some of the changes he outlined Monday have been on the table since 2005, including a new law that would allow parties other than the Baath party, the instrument of Assad's power whose preeminence is enshrined in the constitution. He also spoke of a committee to study amending the constitution or drafting a new one.
"This dialogue is a very important issue which we have to give a chance because all of Syria's future, if we want it to be successful, has to be dependent on this dialogue in which all the different parties in the Syrian arena will participate," Assad said.
In some ways, the speech seemed to suggest a different inflection to the government's long-standing message. For weeks, it has offered a mantra that has underlined its many years in power: Either us or chaos. On Monday, Assad appeared to offer himself as the best means to bring about a change in one of the region's most authoritarian states. Rather than us or chaos, his message was that he alone could deliver.
The response in the street was abrupt, although it was hard to gauge the size of the demonstrations.
"Liar!" activists quoted people chanting in the coastal city of Latakia.
"Are they able to open up?" asked Wissam Tarif, executive director of Insan, a human rights group. "Even if Bashar decides, how much can the system respond to such demands?"
Syrian officials say the dialogue is sincere.
"We believe that this is the only way forward for Syria," said Imad Moustapha, the Syrian ambassador in Washington.
In a rare step, the government has allowed opposition figures and parties to organize conferences in Damascus, although the very novelty of the idea has made logistics difficult. Several opposition figures said no hotel was yet willing to host their meeting.
Opposition figures in Syria like Hussein, Aref Dalila and Michel Kilo said unaffiliated government opponents planned to convene in the capital Monday in an attempt to draft at the very least a platform for eventual negotiations with Assad's leadership. Kilo and Hussein said they would not take part in the government's own dialogue without an end to the crackdown, which has deployed the military across Syria.
More traditional parties, from those of a secular bent to Kurdish groups, are organizing a separate meeting and hope to have some sort of platform by this weekend.
"We cannot wait, with all that's going on in the Syrian street, and not take a decision," said a Kurdish leader helping organize the efforts, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "We shouldn't wait till the regime takes a step. We should save our country."
In principle at least, those groups are willing to enter into talks with the government, although some of them acknowledge they have little sway in the street and run the risk of being marginalized as the uprising pushes for more radical demands.
In the past weeks, the protesters themselves have sought to articulate their voice through the Local Coordination Committees, which released a statement Monday. They called Assad's invitation to a dialogue "a bid to gain more time at the expense of Syrian blood and sacrifice" and ruled out negotiation unless it was aimed at ending Assad's rule.
The opposition abroad — yet to coalesce into a program or a leadership — met in Turkey and Belgium this month. At the meeting in Antalya, Turkey, which drew 300 delegates, including the Muslim Brotherhood and leaders of extended clans, the participants demanded that Assad step down immediately and called for free elections.
"Opposition figures should have risen above their pettiness, their complexes and their sensitivities a long time ago to form a united front against the regime," said Burhan Ghalioun, a Syrian scholar in Paris. Although they lived a half-century underground, Ghalioun said, "they are partly responsible for what is happening, and so far they have failed the uprising."
He called the Local Coordination Committees "the future of the opposition."
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