Before the 11th of September, in my discussions with many officials of the United States, some of them are Congressmen, I used to say that “don’t deal with terrorists as playing games.” It’s a different story. You’re going to pay the price if you’re not wise in dealing with terrorists.
BASHAR AL-ASSADYou cannot have democracy without the institutions. You cannot have a democracy that is built on the moods of self-interested people.
More Bashar al-Assad Quotes
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Many people do not understand the difference between peace and a peace treaty. If you want to have real peace with normal relations between people, you need to have comprehensive peace.
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The fact that there are people who criticize me doesn’t mean that people hate me.
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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.
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If the American administration want to support Al-Qaeda – go ahead. That’s what we have to tell them, go ahead and support Al-Qaeda, but don’t talk about rebels and free Syrian army.
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They need money from abroad, they need moral support and political support from abroad. They don’t have any grassroots, any incubator. So, when you stop the smuggling, we don’t have problems.
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Every country has criminals who have to be fought. They can exist anywhere, including the government or the army – or outside the government and army.
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It is even more so when it comes to Iraq, which is a large Arab country with scientific, material, and human resources and is able to accomplish, at the least, what Lebanon accomplished, and more.
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To have opposition ? We have it, and you can go and meet with them. We have some of them within the government, we have some of them outside the government. They are opposition. We have it.
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I will tell [Barack Obama] very simply : present what you have as evidence to the public, be transparent.
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The external support can never substitute internal support, the example that we have to look at very well is Egypt and Tunisia ; they have all the support from the West and from the Gulf and from most of the countries of the world.
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I’ve never heard of soft war.There’s no soft war. War is war. Any war is ruthless. When you fight terrorists, you fight them like any other war.
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We are worried that rebels are taking control in many countries, and look at the results now. Are you satisfied as an American ? What are the results ? Nothing. Very bad – nothing good.
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Fighting the terrorists in Syria is not only in the interest of Syria or the Syrian people; in the interest of the Middle East, of Europe itself.
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The army is made of the people ; it cannot be made of robots.
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And let’s say in brief they live the Taliban style in Afghanistan, completely the same style.
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The logical thing is to implement the Arab Defense Agreement.
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The majority of fighters now are Al-Qaeda. If you want to support them, you are supporting Al-Qaeda, you are creating havoc in the region, and if this region is not stable, the whole world cannot be stable.
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Whatever the American officials said about the conflicts in Syria in general has no credibility. Whatever they say, it’s just lies and, let’s say, bubbles, has no foundation on the ground.
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We can say, you can win the war only when you restore stability in Syria.
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The question is who threw chemicals on the same day on our soldiers. That’s the same question. Technically, not the soldiers. Soldiers don’t throw missiles on themselves. So, either the rebels, the terrorists, or a third party. We don’t have any clue yet.
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When you talk about Al-Qaeda it doesn’t matter if he’s Syrian or American or from Europe or from Asia or Africa.
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Since the beginning of the crisis, since the terrorists started to control some areas within Syria, the majority of the Syrian civilians left that areas to join the government areas, not vice versa. If the majority of the Syrians don’t trust the government, they should go the other way.
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Even a president makes mistakes.
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“Winning” is a subjective word, but we are making advancement. This is the correct word, because winning for some people is when you finish completely.
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We cannot use jihadists because it’s like shooting yourself in the foot.
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Conversely, it is correct to say that bringing about peace would be the best way to fight terror.
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