It's a journalist's job to be a witness to history. We're not there to worry about ourselves. We're there to try and get as near as we can, in an imperfect world, to the truth and get the truth out.

In one way, I fear all Damascus is a dungeon. Or do you have to live here to appreciate that?

President Bush will come here and there will be new "friends" of America to open a new relationship with the world, new economic fortunes for those who "liberated" them.

Israel lost its war. Will Assad's enemies lose, too?

Refuse to accept the narrative of history laid down by presidents, prime ministers, generals and journalists.

It's very easy to start a war but the muftah, as the Arabs say, the key to switch off a war, is very difficult to find.

We love to think this fundamentalism and terrorism is all about poverty, and, of course, it has a connection. You can see that these people not only are poor but they have no outlets. These governments allow no opposition. So what do people do? They go to Islam. It's the only organizational institution where they can express their feelings. But it's not about poverty. I've never seen a single demonstration in which the people have come out with signs saying, "Please give us better roads. Please give us new prenatal clinics. Please give us a new sewage system."