“Those fighters, the Syrian part that you’re talking about, lost its natural incubators in the Syrian society – they don’t have incubators anymore ; that’s why they have incubators abroad.”

And let’s say in brief they live the Taliban style in Afghanistan, completely the same style.

Iran doesn’t have any soldier in Syria, so how could Iran help me ?

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.

Those who arrived on America’s tanks are not credible in Iraq.

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.

Lebanon was under Israeli occupation, up to its capital, but we did not consider that a disaster. Why? Because it was very clear that there are ways to resist.

It is difficult for anyone to tell you what is going to happen. [Middle East] is an area where everything is on the brink of explosion.

Freedom and democracy are nothing but instruments, just like stability. The goal is called progress and growth. Anyone who puts freedom ahead of stability is hurting growth.

On the border area with Lebanon where [Hezbollah forces] want to protect themselves and cooperate with us, but they don’t exist all over Syria.

It’s a dangerous thing when someone gets up in the morning and has nothing to eat.

Whenever you have a war, the civilians and the innocents will pay the price. That’s in any war, any war is a bad war.

Under Syrian law, a journalist is not allowed to report on military matters. This may be wrong or right, but that’s just the way it is.

We didn’t say that 80% [of terrorists], for example, or the majority or the vast majority, are foreigners. We said the vast majority are Al-Qaeda or Al-Qaeda offshoot organizations in this region.

Everything else should be a piece of cake. Feel good, feel happy, feel healthy, feel loved, feel abundant, feel creative, feel compassionate, feel knowledgeable, feel powerful.

The problem is not the occupation, but how people deal with it.

As soon as the legitimate Lebanese government is convinced that the conditions have ripened and that Lebanon is able to maintain stability on its own… Then, the Syrian forces will return to their homeland.

Privacy is absolutely essential to maintaining a free society. The idea that is at the foundation of the notion of privacy is that the citizen is not the tool or instrument of government – but the reverse… If you have no privacy, it will tend to follow that you have no political freedom.

We know that the only alternative to private competition is government monopoly of enterprise.

The political parties have unanimously rejected the one-man constitutional changes.

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.

The election of Donald Trump is, to me, this very clownish personality with no political experience, who had literally been using fascist slogans in his campaign. It had seemed so impossible.

Never is liberty more easily lost than when we think we are defending it.

war has dug itself into economic systems, where it offers a livelihood to millions … It has lodged in our souls as a kind of religion, a quick tonic for political malaise and a bracing antidote to the moral torpor of consumerist, market-driven cultures.

And for those of us who have, you know, looked in sort of the established order of the political fray over the course of the past several years, it looks like chaos. But to the people I think it looks like democracy.