The legitimization of non-intervention in Syria in the U.S. discourse: A discourse analysis of the selected Western speeches between 2011 and 2014

The thesis "The legitimization of non-intervention in Syria in the U.S. discourse: A discourse analysis of the selected Western speeches between 2011 and 2014" examines the discourse of the President of the United States Barack Obama concerning the Syrian crisis. It focuses on the reasoning that Obama used to explain or even justify his non- interventional approach regarding the crisis in Syria between the years 2011 and 2014. The thesis works with the hypothesis that the United States while justifying non-intervention in Syria, have avoided the geopolitical background of a split in the international community regarding possible solutions to the Syrian conflict. In legitimizing military "non- intervention" they chose another strategy, such as the 'downplaying' strategy, gradually setting out increasingly distant criteria and mitigating emerging threats. To accomplish the established goals the paper used the Narrative Conceptualization Analysis (NCA), as introduced by Shaul Shenhav, that examines the narrative concept through a signified story that consists of at least two events. The NCA largely confirmed the hypothesis. Obama's discourse lacked the geopolitical background. Obama mitigated the threats and set out the increasingly distant criteria, e.g. he claimed the regime of Bashar al-Assad would fall on..