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not included provisions for human rights. On April 29, the Obama administration issued Executive Order 13572, which declared the Syrian regime’s “continuing escalation of violence against the people of Syria, including through attacks on protestors, arrests and harassment of protestors and political activists, and repression of democratic change” a national emergency. The administration targeted Assad’s brother Maher, the commander of Syria’s Fourth Armored Division who played a key role in suppressing protests in Der’a; Atif Najib, Assad’s cousin and head of the Political Security Directorate; Ali Mamlouk, chief of the General Intelligence Directorate (GID); and the organization itself. Unexpectedly, the administration also sanctioned Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps–Quds Force (IRGC-QF) for “providing material support to the Syrian government related to the crackdown.” While the nature of that support was unclear, it was widely rumored in policy and activist circles that Iran had provided software to track Facebook and Twitter users, thus helping to explain the apparent reason for Assad’s magnanimous gesture of lifting his regime’s Internet block on both platforms.

Then, in a speech on May 19 that outlined US policy on what had become known as the Arab Spring, Obama chided Assad by saying the Syrian president had to lead a transition to democracy or “get out of the way.” The same day, Obama issued another order sanctioning Assad himself, vice president Farouk al-Shara, prime minister Adel Safar, interior minister Mohammad Ibrahim al-Shaar, defense minister Ali Habib Mahmoud, military intelligence chief Abdul Fatah Qudsiya, and Political Security Directorate head Mohammed Dib Zaitoun for responsibility for the crackdown.

Assad responded with more force and defiance, and the protests spread to Syria’s Idlib governorate in the country’s northwest region. In the village of Jisr al-Shughour, protestors under the threat of government forces picked up guns and, along with support from unknown gunmen, forced the regime’s forces from the town. As the Syrian army approached Jisr al-Shughour, nearly eleven thousand refugees fled over the border into Turkey. When the regime forces arrived, they claimed those defending the village were takfiri extremists—Sunni Islamists who deem non-Sunnis apostates.

Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who had a long history of positive rapport with Assad, unleashed rare public criticism of the president, describing the crackdown as “barbaric” and saying that his telephone conversations with Assad indicated he was “taking the issue lightly.” Rumors soon spread that Erdogan said Assad had to ask his brother Maher to leave the country and implement reform or risk Turkey’s wrath.

In response, Rami Makhlouf—who, only a few weeks before, had threatened in a New York Times interview that the regime would essentially fight to the death and warned that “if there is no stability here, there’s no way there will be stability in Israel”—announced that he would divest his shares in the country’s lucrative mobile-phone carrier, Syriatel, as well as real estate investments, and he would donate the proceeds to charity.15 Then, on May 20, Assad delivered a speech at Damascus University in an attempt to quell three months of antiregime protests sweeping Syria. While recognizing some of the protestors had legitimate concerns, Assad continued to blame the demonstrations on a “conspiracy” of “outlaws,” “vandals,” and “takfiri extremists.” Perhaps most offensively, Assad refused to recognize the regime’s brutal crackdown on the protesters. He also dismissed “rumors related to the president and his family”—a reference to reports that Maher was leading efforts to snuff out the demonstrations.

But the fact that Assad dedicated his speech to themes of reform demonstrates that the Assad family was beginning to see the need for change under the pressure of growing antiregime protests and international pressure from Turkey, France, and the United States. Assad promised to address corruption (which, Transparency