“We wouldn’t have withstood for two years and a half. We would have disintegration of the army, disintegration of the whole institution in the state.”

We’re not in the area where the alleged chemical attack happened. I said alleged. We’re not sure that anything happened.

The problem with the West is that they start with political reform going towards democracy. If you want to go towards democracy, the first thing is to involve the people in decision making, not to make it.

We are ready to cooperate in any way to achieve stability in Syria, of course taking into consideration the interest of the country, and the will of the Syrian people.

Hamas will not disappear. Hamas will not raise the white flag. Hamas has the trust of the people, and anyone who wishes to destroy it must destroy an entire people.

This is cooperation [with Hezbollah, Iran , from Russia], I don’t know what you mean by support. We have cooperation with countries for decades. Why talk about this cooperation now ?

Anyone who’s not military knows this fact. Why do you use chemical weapons while you’re advancing ?

We have to be there to get the evidence like what happened in Aleppo when we had evidence. And because the United States didn’t send the team, we sent the evidence to the Russians.

When people interact and integrate with each other on daily basis in every detail. So, I think in this regard I am more assured that Syria will be more unified. So, the only problem now that we face is not the partition, but terrorism.

If it’s not a national army, it cannot have the support, and if it doesn’t have the public support of every sect, it cannot do its job and advance recently. It cannot. The army of the family doesn’t make national war.

When you have terrorists, you don’t throw at them balloons or you don’t use rubber sticks, for example. You have to use armaments.

I am Syrian, I was made in Syria, I have to live in Syria and die in Syria.

I don’t believe that in a couple of months Erdogan and the United States regime, and the Western regimes in general, and of course Saudi Arabia and Qatar, are going to stop the support of the terrorists.

We’ve been living in difficult circumstances and we prepare ourselves for every possibility. But that doesn’t mean if you’re prepared things will be better ; it’s going to get worse with any foolish strike or stupid war.

I will tell [Barack Obama] very simply : present what you have as evidence to the public, be transparent.

As I said, this [repercussions] may take different forms : direct and indirect. Direct when people want to retaliate, or governments. Indirect when you’re going to have instability and the spread of terrorism all over the region that will influence the west directly.

When you talk about cooperation, it means cooperation between two legal governments, not cooperation between foreign government and any faction within Syria.

If we cling to the institution of Islam, then we tend to defend it against whatever we see as a danger to it, so because of this we see now that many people are defending states

We cannot afford to raise any institution to the rank of a fetish. To do so would be simply to become the slaves of our own machinery.

So many people and institutions are against homosexuals that, as a homosexual, you can’t waste your time by trying to convince them that you’re a good person.

To steal from a brother or sister is evil. To not steal from the institutions that are the pillars of the Pig Empire is equally immoral.

Baseball, like some other sports, poses as a sacred institution dedicated to the public good, but it is actually a big, selfish business with a ruthlessness that many big businesses would never think of displaying.

The authority of any governing institution must stop at its citizen’s skin.

At some point in the last 20 years, the left moved to the center, and the right moved into a mental institution.

Why shouldn’t I milk it? We’re an agricultural institution.