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.

[American's government] thinking they are the judge of the world; they're not.

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 learned that lesson very well, especially in the eighties, that terrorists cannot be used as a political card, you cannot put it in your pocket, because it's like a scorpion; it will bite you someday.

Peace in Syria is not only our priority; it's a Middle Eastern priority, and when the Middle East is stable, the rest of the world is stable, because the Middle East is the heart of the world geographically and geopolitically, and Syria is the heart of the Middle East geographically and geopolitically.

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.