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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.

-Bashar Al-Assad

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The Problem With The

Bashar Al-Assad

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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.

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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.

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

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.

Whether You Call It Terrorism Or Resistance, And Whether You Like Hamas Or Not, It Is A Political Entity That No One Can Ignore.

That's All Before The Crisis. We Always Have This Kind Of Cooperation With Iran [supplies, Weaponry].

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.

Israeli Occupation

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

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 Can Have National Dialogue Where Different Syrian Parties Sit And Discuss The Future Of Syria. You Can Have Interim Government Or Transitional Government. Then You Have Final Elections, Parliamentary Elections, And You're Going To Have Presidential Elections.

[hezbollah, Iran, And Russia] Are Here Because They Could Offer Very Essential And Important Help, Because The Situation That We Are Facing Now Is Not Only About A Few Terrorists From Within Syria; It's Like International War Against Syria.

My Primary Goal Is To Create Prosperity.

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

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

The United States Doesn't Have The Will To Work Against Al-nusra Or Even Isis, Because They Believe That This Is A Card They Can Use For Their Own Agenda. If They Attack Al-nusra Or Isis, They Will Lose A Very Important Card Regarding The Situation In Syria.

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.

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

Without The Public Support, We Cannot Withstand Two Years And A Half. Look At The Other Countries, Look What Happened In Libya, In Tunisia And In Egypt.

I Think Sadness Prevails In Syria Now. We Don't Feel Anything Else But Sadness Because We Have This Killing Every Day, Whether With Chemical Or Any Other Kind.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

[the Jews] Tried To Kill The Principles Of All Religions With The Same Mentality In Which They Betrayed Jesus Christ And The Same Way They Tried To Betray And Kill The Prophet Muhammad.

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

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.

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.

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.

At The End, Killing Is Killing. Massacring Is Massacring.

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

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

The Hope For An American Is Different From The Hope Of A Syrian. For Me, I Should Be The Hope Of The Syrian, Not Any Other One, Not American, Neither French, Nor Anyone In The World. I'm President To Help The Syrian People.

I Never Rejected Any Responsibility, But That Depends On The Decision.

Any Strike Will Be As Direct Support To Al-qaeda Offshoot That's Called Jabhat Al-nusra And The Islamic State Of Iraq And Syria. You're Right About This. It's Going To Be Direct Support.

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."

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

The First Thing You Have To Learn Is How To Conduct Dialogue And How To Make It Productive.

We're Talking About One Region, Bigger Regions, Not Only About Syria. This Interlinked Region, This Intermingled, Interlocked, Whatever You Want To Call It ; If You Strike Somewhere, You Have To Expect The Repercussions Somewhere Else In Different Forms In Ways You Don't Expect.

[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.

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.

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

A Bomb Is A Bomb, What's The Difference Between Different Kinds Of Bombs? All Bombs Are To Kill, But It's About How To Use It.

This Is Reality. If [the American Officials] Want To Believe, That's Good, That Will Help Them Understand The Region And Be More Successful In Their Policies.

I Am President, I Don't Own The Country So They Are Not My Forces.

We Don't Have A Lot Of Expectations [for Donald J. Trump] Because The American Administration Is Not Only About The President; It's About Different Powers Within This Administration, The Different Lobbies That They Are Going To Influence Any President.

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.

America Must Listen. It Must Listen To The Interests Of Others. But The Us Government Has No Interest In Similarities, No Matter How Obvious.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

Since Its Very Inception, Israel Has Been A Threat.

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.

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".

It Should Be Known That Israel Is Based On Treachery.

We Were On The Way To Democracy. We Didn't Say That We Are Fully Democratic, We Were On The Way, We Were Moving Forward. Slowly Or Fast, That's Subjective, Cannot Be Objective, That's Always Subjective. But We're Moving Forward In That Regard.

Sometimes You May Kill Tens Of Thousands Or Hundreds Of Thousands With Very Primitive Armaments.

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.

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.

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.

It Started Partly As A Sectarian War In Some Areas, But Now It's Not, Because When You Talk About Sectarian War Or Religious War, You Should Have A Very Clear Line Between The Sects And Religions In Syria According To The Geography And The Demography In Syria, Something We Don't Have.

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

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.

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 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.

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

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. When They Don't Have Support Within Their Country, They Couldn't Continue More Than - How Many Weeks ? - Three Weeks. So, The Only Reason We Stand Here For Two Years And A Half Is Because We Have Internal Support, Public Support.

Countries Of The World

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.

The Armament Of The Government Is Legal Armament. Any Other Armament Is Not Legal.

It's Not Exactly Fair To Make A Mistake Yourself And Then Start Blaming Others For It.

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.

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

My Country And Me, We Are Part Of This Region, We're Not Separated. We Cannot Discuss It As Syria Or As Me ; It Should Be As Part, As A Whole, As Comprehensive. That's How We Have To Look At It.

I Think The Most Important Part Of This Now Is, Let's Say The American People, But The Polls Show That The Majority Now Don't Want A War, Anywhere, Not Only Against Syria.

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.

How Can You Be Afraid To Feel? Isn't Fear A Feeling? If You're Feeling Fear, You've Felt One Of The Most Negative Emotions There Is To Feel. 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.

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.

John Kerry Presented His Confidence And His Convictions. It's Not About Confidence, It's About Evidence. The Russians Have Completely Opposite Evidence That The Missiles Were Thrown From An Area Where The Rebels Control. This Reminds Me - What Kerry Said - About The Big Lie That Collin Powell Said In Front Of The World On Satellites About The Wmd In Iraq Before Going To War. He Said "this Is Our Evidence."

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.

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.

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.

The Israeli Lobby Has Clout In The U.s., Which Means That Re-arranging The Region And Controlling Its Resources One Way Or Another, Will Serve Israel Through Its Control Over The American Administration.

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.

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

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.

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

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

Sooner Or Later

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

Every Friend Of Syria Is Looking For Peaceful Solution, And We Are Convinced About That. We Have This Advice, And Without This Advice We Are Convinced About It.

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.

"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.

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.

Even A President Makes Mistakes.

Making Mistakes

According To What We've Been Seeing Recently In The Area Where The Terrorists Control, Where They Ban People From Going To Schools, Ban Young Men From Shaving Their Beards, And Women Have To Be Covered From Head To Toe, And Let's Say In Brief They Live The Taliban Style In Afghanistan, Completely The Same Style.

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.

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

We Are Fully Free, Not Partially, Fully Free, In Everything Related To The Future Of Syria.

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

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.

In Great Britain, An Author Published A Book In Which He Claimed That Jesus Christ Had Children. Such Statements Don't Trigger Civil Unrest And Bloodshed In Europe. But Write Similar Statements About Islam In Syria And You Might See Bloody Uprisings.

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

[peace In Syria] Is [antónio Guterres] Priority, And Of Course It's Our Priority, That's Self-evident.

Any External Support, If You Want To Call It Support, Let's Use This World, Is... How To Say... It's Going To Be Additional, But It's Not The Base To Depend On More Than The Syrian Support.

I Believe That The United States Is Not Genuine Regarding Having A Cessation Of Violence In Syria.

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.

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.

No Doubt That The U.s. Is A Super-power Capable Of Conquering A Relatively Small Country, But Is It Able To Control It?

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.

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.

Politics Is About Realities, Not Logic.

I Cannot Afford To Make Mistakes.

Making Mistakes

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.

In Any War, People Will Pay The Price.

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 Would Have Disintegration Of Syria If That Was The Case. It Can't Be Tolerated In Syria. I'm Talking About The Normal Reaction Of The People. 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.

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

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.

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.

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

Look At The Results Of Regime Change In Iraq. You Can't Possibly Claim That It Was Successful.

We Believe That Lebanon Has Been The First Real Experience For All The Arabs.

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'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.

The Logical Thing Is To Implement The Arab Defense Agreement.

Israel Does Not Care About The International Public Opinion.

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.

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.

Despite The Ethnic Diversity Within Each Nation, The Social Fabric Of The Region By And Large Is One.

Worry Does Not Mean Fear, But Readiness For The Confrontation.

We're Not Like The American Administration, We're Not Social Media Administration Or Government. We Are A Government That Deals With Reality. When We Have Evidence, We'll Announce It.

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.

[barack] Obama Can Draw Lines For Himself And His Country, Not For Other Countries. We Have Our Red Lines, Like Our Sovereignty, Our Independence, While If You Want To Talk About World Red Lines, The United States Used Depleted Uranium In Iraq, Israel Used White Phosphorus In Gaza, And Nobody Said Anything. What About The Red Lines ? We Don't See Red Lines. It's Political Red Lines.

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.

You Cannot Reform Your Society Or Institution Without Opening Your Mind.

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

We're Not Sure That If There's Chemical Weapon Used And Who Used It. We Can't Talk About Virtual Things, We Have To Talk About Facts.

The Problem With Every American Candidate Regarding The Presidency, I Am Not Talking Only About This Campaign Or Elections, But Generally, That They Say Something During The Campaign And They Do The Opposite After The Campaign.

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.

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.

We Never Said That The Majority [of The Terrorists] Are Not Syrians, But We Said That The Minority Is What They Call "free Syrian Army." That's What We Said.

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

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.

It's Our Right To Defend Our Country Against Any Kind Of Invasion.

But For Us, In Syria, We Have Principles. We'll Do Anything To Prevent The Region From Another Crazy War. It's Not Only Syria. Because It Will Start In Syria.

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.

There Is No Good War.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

You Have To Look At The Reality In Syria. Whenever We Liberate Any City Or Village From The Terrorists, The Civilians Will Go Back To The City, While They Flee That City When The Terrorists Attack That Area, The Opposite. So, They Flee, First Of All, The War Itself; They Flee The Area Under The Control Of The Terrorists, They Flee The Difficult Situation Because Of The Embargo By The West On Syria.

Difficult Situations

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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 ?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

Terrorists Have Been Supported By Tens Of Foreign Countries, So Syria Alone Wouldn't Be Able To Face This Kind Of War Without The Help Of Its Friends.

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 ?

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

You Cannot Talk About Winning The War As Long As There's Killing And Destruction On Daily Basis.

You Cannot Reform Your Society Or Institution Without Opening Your Mind. So The Core Issue Is How To Open The Mind, The Whole Society, And This Means Everybody In Society Including Everyone. I Am Not Talking About The State Or Average Or Common People. I Am Talking About Everybody; Because When You Close Your Mind As An Official You Cannot Upgrade And Vice Versa.

None Of Us And None Of The Arabs Trust Israel.

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.

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 - Something That Many Officials In The West Don't See Or Don't Realize Or Don't Acknowledge - And In The Interest Of The Russian People, Because They Have Been Facing Terrorists For Decades Now.

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.

In The United States, They Always Talk About Subtitles, About Chapters In A Book Without Taking The Main Title Of The Book. They Talk About A Subtitle In A Chapter And If You Ask Them About The Headline, The Main Title, They Say They Do Not Know.

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.

We Are The Fault Line; If You Don't Deal With This Fault Line, You're Going To Have An Earthquake, That's What We Always Said.

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 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.

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.

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.

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 ?

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