Mr. Obama at the UN said that the large nations should not trample small ones in pursuit of what he called "territorial ambition". These are curious statements coming from the American president at this time.

However you define territorial ambitions, it need not be a country that's right next to the U.S. for it to exercise its extraterritorial or territorial ambitions.

Mr. Assad is not going to be able to feel like there is a moderate opposition that actually threatens him. Currently, the Assad government looks out at the landscape, sees the rise of ISIS, sees that much of the rebel force has become largely Islamist, and then turns to the West and says, well, you know, they look toward the West and say, well, look, what you have is a terrorist group that's fighting against us. So in this context, I think, to talk about moderate opposition being created to put pressure on Damascus is rather illusionary.

The Chinese did after all decide that the Soviet Union was a greater threat than the United States and decided to come to terms with the United States when Nixon visits China.

We would like to participate in manifestations, in Occupies and things like that. We would like to be involved in a march. But we don't actually see the very hard work that goes to build confidence towards those events. And we don't have a shared discussion.

To build a mass movement, nonviolence is indispensable.

There are cultures that produce different kinds of attitudes, whether it's religion, fatalism, sense of fear, repression, the culture of God and the police minimizes confidence in people.