Bashar al-Assad Quotes

The captain doesn't think about death, or life, he thinks about saving his ship.

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

That's the problem with the American position; they think that they are the police of the world.

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.

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

At the end, killing is killing. Massacring is massacring.

I believe that the United States is not genuine regarding having a cessation of violence in Syria.

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.

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.

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

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."

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.

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.

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.

Syria is in a state of war since its land was occupied for more than four decades, and the nature of the frontier in Syria implies that most of the army is in inhabited areas, most of the centers are in inhabited areas.

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.

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.

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.

I don't believe the United States will be ready to join Russia in fighting terrorists in Syria.

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.

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.

[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.

Politics is about realities, not logic.

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.

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.

When you talk about cooperation, it means cooperation between two legal governments, not cooperation between foreign government and any faction within Syria.

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.

But the issue has to do with land, which is our land.

The American officials should learn to deal with reality. Why did the United States fail in most of its wars ? Because it always based its wars on the wrong information. So, whether they believe or not, this is not reality.

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."

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 ?

Whether you call it terrorism or resistance, and whether you like Hamas or not, it is a political entity that no one can ignore.

Israel does not care about the international public opinion.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

You cannot have partition only on political bases or geographic bases. It should be social first of all when the communities do not live with each other.

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.

You have different parties, different factions, you have different ideologies ; you have everything in Middle East region now.

I cannot afford to make mistakes.

The fact that there are people who criticize me doesn't mean that people hate me.

We believe that Lebanon has been the first real experience for all the Arabs.

America must listen. It must listen to the interests of others. But the US government has no interest in similarities, no matter how obvious.

You can forge anything these days, and we're living in a fake news era.

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.