Discursive double-legitimation of (avoiding) another war in Obama’s 2013 address on Syria Seyyed-Abdolhamid Mirhosseini Alzahra University, Tehran, Iran Tis article explores legitimacy-building in United States President’s 2013 Address to the Nation on Syria. Based on a slightly modifed version of Teo van Leeuwen’s (2008) model of the discursive construction of legitimation and with a view of the war in Syria as the super-macro context of the Address, the inves- tigation illustrates how the speech attempts to legitimate the prospect of a direct American military engagement in Syria on the one hand, and to justify avoiding another war that may prove too costly, on the other. Trough the illustration of such double-legitimation discursive practices, the study portrays how critical discourse studies can provide the ground for awareness of a delicate aspect of the discourse of politics and the rhetoric of politicians in shaping public consent and projecting an always-legitimate image of even contradictory political positions, decisions, and actions. Keywords: critical discourse studies, discourse of politics, political discourse analysis, discursive construction of legitimation, political speeches, presidential speeches, Obama speeches, war rhetoric 1. Introduction In the tumultuous discursive realm of politics, “the political speech laying out the case for war has become a genre in its own right” (Oddo 2011, 289) as politi- cians frequently rely on their art of rhetoric in justifying their decisions for going to war. Rhetorical maneuvers of leaders of several countries in paving the global ground for the military strike against Iraq in 2003 are well known instances of such justifcations (Chang and Mehan 2008; Van Dijk 2005). In the case of the current clashes in Syria that have continued into the seventh year now, the US president, Barack Obama delivered an Address to his nation in 2013 when there was a possibility of a direct military involvement of his country in the confict. In Journal of Language and Politics (Published online: 18 Sep 2017), 1–25. doi 10.1075/jlp.16016.mir issn 1569–2159 / e-issn 1569–9862 © John Benjamins Publishing Company goteborgsswe/6 IP: 130.241.16.16 On: Sat, 23 Sep 2017 16:51:57