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At The Very Beginning, It Was Fully Political. When You Have These Terrorists, The First Part Of The Same Plan Which Is Political Should Start With Stopping The Smuggling Of Terrorists Coming From Abroad, Stopping The Logistic Support, The Money, All Kinds Of Support Coming To These Terrorists.

-Bashar Al-Assad

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At The Very Beginning,

Bashar Al-Assad

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At The Very Beginning, It Was Fully Political. When You Have These Terrorists, The First Part Of The Same Plan Which Is Political Should Start With Stopping The Smuggling Of Terrorists Coming From Abroad, Stopping The Logistic Support, The Money, All Kinds Of Support Coming To These Terrorists.

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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.

Desperate Situations

The Russians Are Fighting For Us, For The World, And For Their Self.

Regarding Fighting Terrorism, We Are Ready To Cooperate With Anyone In This World With No Conditions. That's Crux Of Our Policy, Not Today, Not Yesterday; For Years, Even Before The War On Syria, We Always Said That.

You Should Expect Everything. Not Necessarily Through The Government, The Governments Are Not The Only Player In [middle East] Region.

There Is No Such Things As "islamic Terrorism," Because Terrorism Differs From Islam. There's Just Terrorism, Not Islamic Terrorism. But The Term "islamic Terrorism" Has Become Widespread.

You Have To Be Very Closely Linked To The Beliefs Of The People. This Is The Core Issue. When There Is Divergence Between Your Policy And The People's Beliefs And Interests, You Will Have This Vacuum That Creates Disturbance.

[enemies Of Syria] Are The Enemies Of The People And The Enemies Of God. And The Enemies Of God Will Go To Hell.

I Cannot Afford To Make Mistakes.

Making Mistakes

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.

I Am Syrian, I Was Made In Syria, I Have To Live In Syria And Die In Syria.

The Worst Loss For Any Country Is Not The Infrastructure Or The Buildings Or The Material Loss; Actually, It's The Human Resources Loss.

From Russia For Example, We Have Political Support, Which Is Different From The Cooperation. We Have Cooperation For 60 Years Now, But Now We Have Political Support.

I Always Say The Syrian Problem As Isolated Case, As Syrian Case, Is Not Very Complicated. What Makes It Complicated Is The Interference From The Outside, Especially The Western Interference Because It's Against The Will Of The Syrian Government, While The Intervention Of The Russians, Iranians, And Hezbollah Is Because Of The Invitation Of The Syrian Government.

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.

Trust That The Thing In Life That Excites You The Most Comes Complete With All The Tools Necessary To Support You In The Doing Of That Thing. It Is Automatic; It Is Built In. All You Need To Do Is Act On The Opportunities That Doing That Situation Brings To You.

From Our Side, From Our Part As Government, We Have Two Missions: The First One Is To Fight Those Terrorists To Liberate That Area [eastern Part Of Aleppo] And The Civilians From Those Terrorists, And At The Same Time To Try To Find A Solution To Evacuate That Area From Those Terrorists If They Accept, Let's Say, What You Call It Reconciliation Option, In Which They Either Give Up Their Armaments For Amnesty, Or They Leave That Area.

It Is Not My Democracy As A Person; It Is Our Democracy As A Society.

Whether [turkey] Is A Nato Country Or Not, It Doesn't Have The Right To Invade Any Other Country According To The International Law Or To Any Other Moral Value.

Al-qaeda Has One Ideology And They Go Back To The Same Leadership In Afghanistan Or In Syria Or In Iraq. That's The Question. You Have Tens Of Thousands Of Foreigners, That's Definitely Correct. We Are Fighting Them On The Ground And We Know This.

Our Soldiers In Another Area Were Attacked Chemically. Our Soldiers - They Went To The Hospital As Casualties Because Of Chemical Weapons, But In The Area Where They Said The Government Used Chemical Weapons, We Only Had Video And We Only Have Pictures And Allegations. We're Not There ; Our Forces, Our Police, Our Institutions Don't Exist There. How Can You Talk About What Happened If You Don't Have Evidence ?

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're Talking About The Responsibility, My Responsibility According To The Syrian Constitution That Said We Have To Defend Ourselves.

If You Want To Kill The Syrian People, Who's Going To Support Us As A Government, As Officials? No One.

In The Initiative That We Issued At The Beginning Of Year 2013 We Said Every Party With No Exceptions As Long As They Give Up Their Armaments.

It Should Be Known That Israel Is Based On Treachery.

You Look At [terrorists] Faces, They Look Foreigners, But Where Are They Coming From ? How Precise This Estimate Is Difficult To Tell, But Definitely The Majority Are Al-qaeda.

Talking About Winning And Losing Is Like If You're Talking About Two Armies Fighting On Two Territories, Which Is Not The Case. Those [terrorists] Are Gangs, Coming From Abroad, Infiltrate Inhabited Areas, Kill The People, Take Their Houses, And Shoot At The Army. The Army Cannot Do The Same, And The Army Doesn't Exist Everywhere.

If You Want To Be Transparent With Your People, Do Not Do Anything Cosmetic, Whether To Deceive Your People Or To Get Some Applaud From The West.

For Turkey, They Think That If The Muslim Brotherhood Take Over The Rest Of The Region, They Will Be Very Comfortable, They Will Be Very Happy, They Will Make Sure That Their Political Future Is Guaranteed.

If You Ask Americans Whether They've Been Successful At Sealing The Border With Mexico, They'll Tell You That It's A Very Difficult Proposition.

First Of All, When You Have A Doctor Who Cut The Leg To Prevent The Patient From The Gangrene If You Have To, We Don't Call Butcher ; You Call Him A Doctor, And Thank You For Saving The Lives.

In The War, You Lose Areas, But You Recapture Another Area. So, It Is Difficult To Tell Whether You Are Losing Or Gaining Or It Was A Standstill. No-one Has This Answer.

My Decision Was, And The Decision Of The Different Institutions, And The Decision Of The Different Officials In Syria - I'm On Top Of Them - Was To Have Dialogue, To Fight Terrorists, And To Reform As A Response At The Very Beginning, Response To The Allegations, Let's Say, At That Time, That They Needed Reform In Syria, We Responded.

Even If You Want To Take The American Story, They Say We Used Chemical Weapons The Same Day The Team Or The Investigation Team Came To Syria ; Is It Logical ? It's Not Logical. Even If A Country Or Army Wanted To Use Such Weapon, They Should Have Waited A Few Days Till The Investigation Finished Its Work. It's Not Logical, The Whole Story Doesn't Even Hold Together.

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.

Simply Naming Objectives Isn't Sufficient For A Vision. If I Say That I'm Going To Build A Large Palace, But I Don't Have Any Money To Do So, Then That Is Not A Vision - It's An Illusion.

But The Issue Has To Do With Land, Which Is Our Land.

Tayyip Erdoğan Is Megalomaniac President, He Is Not Stable. He Lives During The Ottoman Era, He Doesn't Live In The Current Time. He's Out Of Touch With The Reality.

We Always Say We Have Wishful Thinking That The Unites States Would Be Unbiased, Respect The International Law, Doesn't Interfere In Other Countries Around The World, And Of Course To Stop Supporting Terrorists In Syria.

Its Not About Learning To Trust. Its About Learning What It Is I Place My Trust In And Why. Its Like Learning To See The Forest For The Trees. You Cannot See The Forest For The Trees Unless You Are Outside The Forest.

In The End A Lie Is A Lie.

When You Have Terrorism, You Have A War. When You Have A War, You Always Have Innocent Lives That Could Be The Victim Of Any War, So, We Don't Have To Discuss What The Image In The West Before Discussing The Image In Syria. That's The Question.

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.

What The Army Is Doing Is Cleaning Those Areas, And The Indication That The Army Is Strong Is That It's Making Advancement In That Area. It Never Went To One Area And Couldn't Enter To It - That's An Indication. How Could That Army Do That If It's A Family Army Or A Sect Army ? What About The Rest Of The Country Who Support The Government ? It's Not Realistic, It Doesn't Happen. Otherwise, The Whole Country Will Collapse.

History Teaches Us That Nobody Can Prevent A Resistance Group From Arming When It Has The Support Of The People.

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.

Our Democracy Should Reflect Our Culture And Our Habits And Our Customs And Our Reality At The Same Time.

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.

When You're In The Middle Of A Storm, Leaving Your Country Just Because You Have To Leave Without Any Reasonable Reason, It Means You're Quitting Your Country And This Is Treason.

This Is Where We Can Discuss The Evidence [of The Chemical Weapons ], But He Doesn't Have It. He Didn't Present It Because He Doesn't Have It, Kerry Doesn't Have It. No One In Your Administration Has It. If They Had It, They Would Have Presented It To You As Media From The First Day.

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.

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Why Should You Use A Term [rebels] In The United States And England And Maybe Other Countries And Use Another Term In Syria ? This Is A Double Standard That We Don't Accept.

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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.

That's The Problem With The American Position; They Think That They Are The Police Of The World.

That The Rebels Or The Terrorists Used The Chemical Weapons In Northern Aleppo Five Months Ago [in 2013].

I Have To Be Very Clear And Very Honest. I'm Not Asking [ The American Officials] To Believe If They Don't Want To Believe. This Is Reality, I'm Telling You The Reality From Our Country. We Live Here, We Know What Is Happening, And They Have To Listen To People Here. They Cannot Listen Only To Their Media Or To Their Research Centers. They Don't Live Here ; No One Lives Here But Us.

Anyone Who's Not Military Knows This Fact. Why Do You Use Chemical Weapons While You're Advancing ?

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With The Time, Yes We Can Be Worried, Because The Secular State Should Reflect Secular Society, And This Secular Society, With The Time, If You Don't Get Rid Of Those Terrorists And These Extremists And The Wahabi Style, Of Course It Will Influence At Least The New And The Coming Generations.

Secular Society

We Asked For A Delegation [of The Red Cross] In March 2013 When The First Attack Happened In Aleppo In The North Of Syria ; They Delayed It Till Just A Few Days Before Al-ghouta When They Sent Those Team, And The Team Itself Said In Its Report That He Did Everything As He Wanted. There Was Not A Single Obstacle.

From The First Day I Took The Decision As President To Defend My Country.

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.

The Most Important Part Of [russian] Support Is The Aerial Support, Which Is Very Essential, They Have Very Strong Firepower, And At The Same Time They Are The Main Supply Of Our Army For More Than Sixty Years, So Our Army Depends On The Russian Support In Different Military Domains.

To Have Or Not To Have [chemical Weapons] Is A Possibility, But To Depend On What Media Says Is Nonsense, Or To Depend On Some Of The Reports Of The Intelligence Is Nonsense And That Was Proven When They Invaded Iraq Ten Years Ago And They Said "iraq Has Stockpiles Of Wmd" And It Was Proven After The Invasion That This Was False ; It Was Fraud. So, We Can't Depend On What One Magazine Wrote.

There's A Difference Between Responsibility Of The Policy And Responsibility Of The Practice. In Any Practice, You Have Malpractice, That's Another Issue. When You Talk About State And President, You Always Talk About The Decisions And The Policy.

You Can't Say "the People Of Aleppo" Because The Majority Of The People Of Aleppo Are Living In The Area Under The Control Of The Government, So You Cannot Talk About The People Of Aleppo.

You Cannot Have Democracy Without The Institutions. You Cannot Have A Democracy That Is Built On The Moods Of Self-interested People.

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.

There Is No Good War.

[chemical Weapons] Isn't About What The United States Believe In, It's About The Reality That We Have, And This Reality, We Own It, We Don't Have To Discuss It.

It's Not Religious War, But Al-qaeda Always Use Religions, Islam - Actually, As A Pretext And As A Cover And As A Mantle For Their War And For Their Terrorism And For Their Killing And Beheading And So On.

If You Are Going To Be A Mediator Or Arbitrator You Have To Be In The Middle Between The Two Sides; You Cannot Take Sides Only With One Party.

Iran Doesn't Have Any Soldier In Syria, So How Could Iran Help Me ?

When Lebanon Started Its Resistance It Was A Small And Divided Country.

Revolution Should Be Syrian, Cannot Be Revolution Imported From Abroad.

Armies Are Not Only For Offensives.

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.

You Cannot Import Anything From Outside Your Country Regarding The Future Of Your Country.

There's A Video On Youtube Where The Terrorists Clearly Make Trials [of Chemical Weapons] On A Rabbit And Kill The Rabbit And Said "this Is How We're Going To Kill The Syrian People."

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. 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.

We Are Dealing With Treachery And Threats, Which Accompanied The Establishment Of Israel.

In Aleppo We Had The Missile Itself, And The Material, And The Sample From The Sand, From The Soil, And Samples From The Blood [of Chemical Weapons].

Those Who Arrived On America's Tanks Are Not Credible In Iraq.

We Don't Discuss This Issue [conversations With Russia] As A Government, But We Discuss The Repercussions, Which Is More Important Because Sometimes Repercussions Could Be More Destroying Than The Strike Itself.

We're Not In The Area Where The Alleged Chemical Attack Happened. I Said Alleged. We're Not Sure That Anything Happened.

"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.

It's Very Simple ; Once The Western Countries Stop Supporting Those Terrorists And Making Pressure On Their Puppet Countries And Client States Like Saudi Arabia And Turkey And Others, You'll Have No Problem In Syria. It Will Be Solved Easily.

Any American Strike Will Not Destroy As Much As The Terrorists Have Already Destroyed In Syria ; Sometimes The Repercussions Could Be Many Doubles The Strike Itself.

The Part In Aleppo, What [people] Call It The Eastern Part, Is Occupied By The Terrorists For The Last Three Years, And They Have Been Using The Civilians As Human Shields.

[hezbollah Forces] Cannot Exist All Over Syria Anyway, For Many Reasons, But They Exist On The Borders.

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.

Using Terrorism Or Jihadists Or Extremists For Any Political Agenda Is Immoral.

Did The President Order Anyone To Kill Civilians, Did He Order The Destruction, Did He Order Supporting Terrorism In His Country? Of Course Not.

The Criteria Or The Paradigm For Us Is Not The West, Not The Western Paradigm, Because The West Has Its Own Culture, We Have Our Own Culture, They Have Their Own Reality, We Have Our Own Reality.

The First Question That I Ask : Do I Have Public Support Or Not. That Is The First Question That I Asked As President. If I Don't Have The Public Support, Whether There's The So-called "arab Spring" - It's Not Spring, Anyway - But Whether We Have This Or We Don't, If You Don't Have Public Support, You Have To Quit, You Have To Leave. If You Have Public Support, In Any Circumstances You Have To Stay. That's Your Mission, You Have To Help The People, You Have To Serve The People.

Personally, I Do Not Support The Concept Of Suicide Bombings. This Is Not Part Of Our [syrian] Culture. But Whether You Condemn Them Or Not, Suicide Bombings Are A Reality.

We Cannot Use Jihadists Because It's Like Shooting Yourself In The Foot.

I'm Not Talking About Him; I'm Talking About The Countries That Go To Support [antonio] Guterres Plan, Because He Needs The Support Of Other Countries, He Cannot Achieve That Plan While Many Countries In The World Are Still Supporting The Terrorists In Syria. So, Of Course We Support It, Whether Helping The People To Live, To Go Back To Their Country, And To Live In Security Without Terrorists.

When You Use An Armament, You Use It To Defend The Civilians. You Kill Terrorists In Order To Defend Civilians. That's The Natural Role Of Any Army In The World.

There's A Difference Between A Mistake Or Even A Crime That's Been Committed By An Individual, And Between A Policy Of Crime That's Been Implemented Or Adopted By A Government.

The Army Is Made Of The People ; It Cannot Be Made Of Robots.

For The West, They Wanted To Undermine The Syrian Positions. For The Petrodollar Countries Like Saudi Arabia, They're Thinking Undermining Syria Will Undermine Iran On Sectarian Basis.

These People That Started Here, They Support The Government Now Against Those Rebels. Why Talking About What Happened At The Very Beginning Is Completely Different From What Is Happening Now - It's Not The Same. There's Very High Dynamic, Things Are Changing On Daily Basis. It's A Completely Different Image. Those People Who Wanted Revolution, They Are Cooperating With Us.

The United States' Credibility Is At An All-time Low. So, This War Is Against The Interest Of The Untied States.

Even A President Makes Mistakes.

Making Mistakes

António Guterres Role As Secretary-general In Bringing All Powers Together Is Very Essential` And We Hope He Can Succeed, It's Not Easy Of Course.

Many People, They Flee Not The War Itself, But The Consequences Of The War, Because They Want To Live, They Want To Have The Basic Needs For Their Livelihood, They Don't Have It. They Have To Flee These Circumstances, Not Necessarily The Security Situation Itself. So, You Have Different Reasons For The People Or The Refugees To Leave Syria.

When You Talk About Humanitarian, It Doesn't Only Mean To Offer The People The Help, The Food, Their Necessary Needs For Their Life. The First Thing, If You Ask The Syrian Refugees, For Example, The First Thing They Want Is To Go Back To Their Country.

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.

If The Rebels Or The Terrorists In This Region Or Any Other Group Have [chemical Warfare], This Could Happen, I Don't Know. I'm Not A Fortuneteller To Tell You What's Going To Happen.

When You Talk About Cooperation, It Means Cooperation Between Two Legal Governments, Not Cooperation Between Foreign Government And Any Faction Within Syria.

Let's Presume That A Country Or Army Has This Weapon ; This Kind Of Armaments Cannot Be Used By Infantry For Example Or By Anyone. This Kind Of Armament Should Be Used By Specialized Units, So It Cannot Be In The Hand Of Anyone.

We Have Hopes That We Can See Rational American Presidents; Fair, Obey The International Law, Deal With Other Countries According To Mutual Respect, Parity, Etc., But We All Know That This Is Only Wishful Thinking And Fantasy.

We Have The Precedent Of Collin Powell Ten Years Ago, When He Showed The Evidence, It Was False, And It Was Forged.

As Far As We Are Concerned, We Syria Have Not Changed.

I Don't Have Support. Not Me ; All Syria. Every Agreement Is Between Every Class And Every Sector In Syria ; Government, People, Trade, Military, Culture, Everything ; It's Like The Cooperation Between Your Country And Any Other Country In The World. It's The Same Cooperation. It's Not About Me ; It's Not Support For The Crisis.

We Cannot Tell Anything About What [donald Trump] Is Going To Do, But If, Let's Say If He Is Going To Fight The Terrorists, Of Course We Are Going To Be Ally, Natural Ally In That Regard With The Russian, With The Iranian, With Many Other Countries Who Wanted To Defeat The Terrorists.

The Fact That There Are People Who Criticize Me Doesn't Mean That People Hate Me.

I Will Tell [barack Obama] Very Simply : Present What You Have As Evidence To The Public, Be Transparent.

In Reality, You Cannot Withstand For Five Years And More Against All Those Countries, The West, And The Gulf States, The Petrodollars, And All This Propaganda, The Strongest Media Corporations Around The World, If You Don't Have The Support Of Your Own People. That's Against The Reality.

If We Want To Expect Something From This [barack Obama] Administration, It Is Not To Be Weak, To Be Strong To Say That "we Don't Have Evidence," That "we Have To Obey The International Law", That "we Have To Go Back To The Security Council And The United Nations".

Do You Call The People In Los Angeles In The Nineties - Do You Call Them Rebels Or Opposition ? They Are Rebels. They Are Not Rebels Even, They Are Beheading. This Opposition, Opposing Country Or Government, By Beheading ? By Barbecuing Heads ? By Eating The Hearts Of Your Victim ? Is That Opposition ? What Do You Call The People Who Attacked The Two Towers On The 11th Of September ? Opposition ? Even If They're Not Americans, I Know This, But Some Of Them I Think Have Nationality - I Think One Of Them Has American Nationality. Do You Call Him Opposition Or Terrorist ?

From The First Day I Took The Decision As President To Defend My Country. So, Who Killed ? That's Another Question. Actually, The Terrorists Have Been Killing Our People Since The Beginning Of This Crisis Two Years And A Half Ago, And The Syrian People Wanted The Government And The State Institutions And The Army And The Police To Defend Them, And That's What Happened.

We Have Agreements With Many Countries Including Iran, Including Russia, Including Other Countries That Are About Different Things Including Armament. It's Cooperation Like Any Cooperation Between Any Two Countries, Which Is Normal. It's Not Related To The Crisis.

Your Policy Should Be A Mixture Between Your Interests And How You Reach Your Ends, But Based On Values. It Cannot Be Only The End Justifies The Means, Because For The Criminals, Ends Justify The Means, For Thieves, For Every Illegal And Immoral Action, The End Justifies The Means.

I Would Only Give A Prize To Whoever Works For The Peace In Syria, First Of All By Stopping The Terrorists From Flowing Towards Syria, Only.

The Problem With The West Is That They Start With Political Reform Going Towards Democracy.

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.

We Are Very Cautious In Judging [donald Trump], Especially As He Wasn't In A Political Position Before.

Think Of The War Against Terrorism. In My View, Washington's Approach Can Be Compared To A Doctor Constantly Banging Away At A Tumor Instead Of Removing It Surgically.

You In Lebanon, Your Power Is No Match To Israel. Israel, Militarily, Is More Powerful Than You And Maybe It Is More Powerful Than All The Arab Countries, Or Most Of Them.

No Government In The World Kills Its People, Unless It's Led By A Crazy Person.

I Think The Congress Is Elected By People, It Represents The People, And Works For Their Interest. The First Question That They Should Ask Themselves : What Do Wars Give America, Since Vietnam Till Now ? Nothing. No Political Gain, No Economic Gain, No Good Reputation.

There Can Be No Peace Without Unity.

Israel Has Wmd, And It Has To Sign [chemical Warfare Agreement], And Israel Is Occupying Our Land, So That's We Talked About The Middle East, Not Syria, Not Israel ; It Should Be Comprehensive.

You Want Me To Believe American Evidence And Don't Want Me To Believe The Indications That We Have. We Live Here, This Is Our Reality.

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.

The Army Is Making Good Advancement On Daily Basis Against The Terrorists. Of Course, They Still Have The Support Of Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia And Some Western Countries Including The United States, But The Only Option That We Have In That Regard Is To Win.

[ Jihadists] Are Going To Be Against You Sooner Or Later.

Sooner Or Later

Everybody Knows That The United Nations Is Not The Secretary-general; He Has An Important Position, But The United Nations Is The States Within This Organization, And To Be Frank, Most Of The People Say Only The Five Permanent Members; This Is The United Nations Because They Have The Veto, They Can Do Whatever They Want And They Can Refuse Whatever They Want, And If There's A Reform That Is Very Much Needed For This Organization.

In Any War, People Will Pay The Price.

We've Been Dealing With This Kind Of Terrorism Since The Fifties, Since The Muslim Brotherhood Came To Syria At That Time.

As We See Now The American Officials, They Say Something In The Morning And They Do The Opposite In The Evening. So, You Cannot Judge Those People According To What They Say. You Cannot Take Them At Their Words, To Be Frank.

At The End, I Said [chemical Weapons] Is Something Not To Be Discussed With Anyone.

You Have Different Parties, Different Factions, You Have Different Ideologies ; You Have Everything In Middle East Region Now.

There's A Video About One Of Those Women Who They Consider As Rebel Or Fighter Who Worked With Those Terrorists And She Said "they Didn't Tell Us How To Use The Chemical Weapons" And One Of Those Weapons Exploded In One Of The Tunnels And Killed Twelve. That's What She Said.

Let's Be Realistic, Every Terrorist Came To Syria, He Came Through Turkey With The Support Of [recep Tayyip] Erdogan. So, Fighting Those Terrorists Is Like Fighting The Army Of Erdogan, Not The Turkish Army, The Army Of Erdogan.

Some Of These Agendas Wanted Me To Quit, Very Simply, So They Said "we Have All The Guarantees If You Want To Leave, And All The Money And Everything You Want." Of Course, You Just Ignore That.

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 ?

The Only One Who Can Fight For These Values Like Democracy And Freedoms Are The People Of Any Country Or Any Society, Not The Foreigners.

The Other Thing We Did As Government Is To Open Gates For The Civilians To Leave That [ Eastern Part] Area [in Aleppo], And At The Same Time For The Humanitarian Convoys And Help To Go Through Those Gates Inside That Part Of Aleppo, But The Terrorists Publicly Refused Any Solution, So They Wanted To Keep The Situation As It Is.

If You Don't Win And The Terrorists Win, Syria Wouldn't Exist Anymore.

We Can Say, You Can Win The War Only When You Restore Stability In Syria.

Foreigners Cannot Bring Freedom, Cannot Bring Democracy, Because This Is Related To The Culture, To The Different Factors That Affect Or Influence That Society. You Cannot Bring It, You Cannot Import It.

The Problem Is Not The Occupation, But How People Deal With It.

[it Is Important] To Have Stability And To Have Security, Which Means Humanitarian Equals Fighting Terrorists. You Cannot Talk About Humanitarian Aid And Supporting The Terrorists At The Same Time. You Cannot, You Have To Choose.

Two Years And A Half And Syria Is Still Withstanding Against The United States, The West, Saudi Arabia, The Richest Countries In This Area, Including Turkey, And, Taking Into Consideration What Your Question Implies, That Even The Big Part Or The Bigger Part Of The Syrian Population Is Against Me, How Can I Withstand Till Today ? Am I The Superhuman Or Superman, Which Is Not The Case !

I Would Say I Need Two Things: The First One Is To Be Objective In Every Statement He Could Make Regarding Any Conflict Around The World, Including Syria. The Second One Is Not To Turn Secretary-general Office Into A Part Or Branch Of The State Department Of The United States.

We Have To Wait And See When Donald J. Trump Embarks His New Mission, Let's Say, Or Position Within This Administration As President.

Of Course, When Secretary-general Is Objective, He Can Play An Important Role In Dealing With Different Officials In The United Nations In Order To Bring The Policies Of The Different States - Mainly Russia And The United States - Toward More Cooperation And More Stability Regarding Syria.

We Are Facing An External Attack Against Us, Which Is More Dangerous Than Any Other Previous Wars... We Are Dealing With Those Who Are Extremists, Who Only Know The Language Of Killing And Criminality.

We Don't Say That We Don't Have It, We're Still Secular In Syria, But With The Time, This Secularism Will Be Eroded.

[a Conflict Of Sunni Vs. Shia] Is In The Mind Of The Saudis, And This Is In The Minds Of The Wahabists. [the Iranians] Actually What They Are Doing Is The Opposite. They Tried To Open Channels With The Saudi, With Many Other Islamic Entities In The Region In Order To Talk About Islamic Society, Not Sunni And Shi'ite Societies.

You Hardly Find Any Military Base In Distant Areas From The [syria] Cities Unless It's An Airport Or Something Like This, But Most Of The Military Bases Or Centers Within Inhabited Areas.

Nobody Knows [who They Are] Because When [terrorists] Are Dead And They Are Killed, They Don't Have Any Id.

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.

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.

The United States Accused Syria, And Because You Accused You Have To Bring Evidence [of Chemical Weapons], This First Of All. We Have To Find Evidences When We Are There.

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.

When You Talk About Al-qaeda It Doesn't Matter If He's Syrian Or American Or From Europe Or From Asia Or Africa.

They Want To Criticize You, Let Them Criticize And Do Not Worry. Just Be Transparent With Your People And Tell Them This Is The Reality.

I Wouldn't Tell The President [barack Obama] Or Any Other Official, Because We Are Disappointed By Their Behavior Recently, Because We Expected This Administration To Be Different From Bush's Administration. They Are Adopting The Same Doctrine With Different Accessories.

We, In Syria, Our Point Of View Stems From Our Experience.

The Russians Always Base Their Policies On Values, And These Values Are The Sovereignty Of Other Countries, The International Law, Respecting Other People, Other Cultures, So They Don't Interfere In Whatever Is Related To The Future Of Syria Or The Syrian People.

You Said Treaties, And A Russian Official Said ; We Have Not Agreement... Contracts, That We Have To Fulfill, And Those Contracts Are Like Any Country ; You Buy Armaments, You Buy Anything You Want.

As A State, As A Government, In 2001 We Proposed To The United Nations To Empty Or To Get Rid Of Every Wmd In The Middle East, And The United States Stood Against That Proposal. This Is Our Conviction And Policy.

Is There An Equality Of Power Between America And Iraq? Definitely Not; However, The Iraqi People Are Standing Fast And Are Defending Their Land Courageously.

Almost All Countries Have Natural Dividing Lines, And When Ethnic And Religious Partition Occurs In One Country, It'll Soon Happen Elsewhere.

When We Analyze This War In A Materialistic Way And Ask When Is It Going To End And Who Will Be The Winner And The Loser, It Means That We Do Not See The Endgame.

The Most Significant Indicator That There Is No Disaster In Iraq Is The Fact That There Is No Exodus.

We Feel Pain For Every Syrian Victim.

Reform Has To Be Based On Opening Your Mind And Opening The Mind Does Not Come From Decrees Or Laws. It Comes From A Whole Set Of Circumstances, Which If You Do Not Have, Anything You Do Will Be Not Productive Or Will Be Counter-productive.

It's Not About Me, Again, This Fight Is Not My Fight, It's Not The Fight Of The Government ; It's The Fight Of The Country, Of The Syrian People.

Circumstances Don't Matter, Only My State Of Being Matters. What State Of Being Are You Choosing?

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.

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.

Let's Talk... We Have Indications, Let Me Just Finish This Point, Because How Can Use Wmd While Your Troops Are Only 100 Meters Away From It ? Is It Logical ? It Doesn't Happen. It Cannot Be Used Like This.

We Said [u.s] Are Going To Be Repercussions Of The Mistaken Way Of Dealing With It, Of Treating The Terrorism, But Nobody Expected 11th Of September. So, You Cannot Expect. It Is Difficult For Anyone To Tell You What Is Going To Happen. It's An Area Where Everything Is On The Brink Of Explosion. You Have To Expect Everything.

Hezbollah Fighters Are On The Borders With Lebanon Where The Terrorists Attacked Them. On The Borders With Lebanon, This Is Where Hezbollah Retaliated, And This Is Where We Have Cooperation, And That's Good.

Opposition Doesn't Mean To Take Arms And Kill People And Destroy Everything.

This War [in Syria] Is Going To Support Al-qaeda And The Same People That Killed Americans In The 11th Of September. The Second Thing That We Want To Tell Congress, That They Should Ask And That What We Expect Them To Ask This Administration About The Evidence That They Have Regarding The Chemical Story And Allegations That They Presented.

I Don't Believe The United States Will Be Ready To Join Russia In Fighting Terrorists In Syria.

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.

The Sarin Gas Is A Very Primitive Gas. You Can Have It Done In The Backyard Of A House ; It's A Very Primitive Gas. So, It's Not Something Complicated.

I Don't Believe In War, I Believe In The Principle Of Deterrence.

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.

America Is Interested In Re-arranging The Region As It Sees Fit.

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Marion Zimmer Bradley

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