I don’t believe in war, I believe in the principle of deterrence.
BASHAR AL-ASSADThis is the Middle East, where every week you have something new; so whatever you talk about this week will not be valuable next week.
More Bashar al-Assad Quotes
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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.
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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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In the eighties, we asked for international coalition against terrorism after the Muslim Brotherhood crisis in Syria when they started killing, of course they were defeated at that time. We asked for the same thing. So, this is a long-term policy that we base our policy on for years now.
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We don’t discuss this issue [ chemical weapons ] in public because we never said that we have it, and we never said that we don’t have it. It’s a Syrian issue ; it’s a military issue we never discuss in public with anyone.
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You cannot be desperate when the army is making advances. That should have happened – if we take into consideration that this presumption is correct and this is reality – you use it when you’re in a desperate situation.
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If you want to talk about mistakes, every country has mistakes, every government has mistakes, every person has mistakes. When you have a war, you have more mistakes. That’s the natural thing.
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Russia is very important, Iran is very important, Hezbollah is very important. All of them are important. Each one made important achievements against the terrorists in Syria, so it’s difficult to say who is more important than the other.
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Opposition is different from terrorism. Opposition is a political movement.
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This is the Middle East, where every week you have something new; so whatever you talk about this week will not be valuable next week.
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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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Despite the ethnic diversity within each nation, the social fabric of the region by and large is one.
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Syria is geographically and politically in the middle of the Middle East. That is why we are in contact with most of the problems forever, let us say, whether directly or indirectly.
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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.
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It is not my democracy as a person; it is our democracy as a society.
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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.
BASHAR AL-ASSAD