Quotes About Assad

I don't know that anybody has walked up to me in the street or in a store or in the grocery and said to me, 'I hope you bomb Assad.' Certainly plenty have said, 'No; thumbs down, thumbs down, thumbs down.'

My family supports the Assad regime. Especially my mother. She's a true Christian believer who goes to church every Sunday. She loves her country and wants to stay there.

The regime isn't protecting Christians, it's only protecting itself. Assad isn't protecting Alawites, either. He's exploiting Alawites.

Shabeeha were the only ones armed at that time, apart from the security forces and the army. They were civilian, most likely Alawites, working for somebody connected to the Assad family or other influential families. They did whatever they wanted and nobody dared to stop them.

You know, many Alawites hated the Assad regime, and I think the regime knew that. They also know that the Alawite community is their lifeline, their base for survival.

President Barack Obama, who unjustly received the Nobel Peace Prize, was directly involved in the illegal attack on Syria. Once again, the "divide and conquer" strategy was employed. The CIA trained and armed President Assad's opponents, even though the UN ban on the use of force strictly prohibits arming militant groups in foreign countries. "We know they sent in the CIA to overthrow Assad," revealed US economist Jeffrey Sachs, who teaches at Columbia University.

The fact that we walked away from the Middle East, as distasteful as it was for us to stay involved and prevent wars, based on our long involvement there, we have helped to create and provide a foundation. Obviously for ISIS and also for the absolute barbarianism and human catastrophe that Assad impacted on his people.

Syria's continued alliance with Iran became one of the main justifications of Western attempts to overthrow Assad. Tom Donilon, President Obama's national-security adviser, said in 2011 that the "end of the Assad regime would constitute Iran's greatest setback in the region yet—a strategic blow that will further shift the balance of power in the region against Iran."14

Clinton impressed Assad: a young man who appeared to want to be neutral in the Arab-Israeli dispute - an illusion of course, but that's what Assad thought.

Unless there is meaningful change in Syria and an end to the crackdown, President Assad and those around him will find themselves isolated internationally and discredited within Syria.

I'm not a journalist. So I didn't down and let Assad charm me. I didn't walk away and say "my god he's got an Apple computer and he really likes Beyonce so he must be a liberal."

Hezbollah will support Assad to the end because his continuing hold on power is critical to its own survival.

I have long argued that ISIS and Assad are not separate problems to be chosen between, but are action and reaction, cause and symptom, chicken and egg: impossible to untangle no matter how much we might like to.

Unless there is meaningful change in Syria and an end to the crackdown, President Assad and those around him will find themselves isolated internationally and discredited within Syria.

The regime of Bashar al-Assad will inevitably go down. And its collapse will be loud not only in Syria but across the Arab world.

Back in the 1950s, America set out to intervene in Syria, liberate the people from a corrupt elite, and bring about a new democracy. They did this with the best of intentions, but it led to disaster. And out of that disaster, the Assad regime rose to power.

I've said for a long time there is no military solution to the crisis in Syria. There has to be a diplomatic solution. ISIL cannot be part of it. Al-Qaeda cannot be part of it, and Assad cannot be part of it. We are dealing with issues that have been going on for centuries, and I'm not sure the administration fully appreciates that.

The word 'democracy' and the name of Assad do not blend very well in much of Syria.

Assad has to go. I mean, the way that ISIS can recruit, and the rebels that are in the north, and all the chaos that's happening through a lot of Syria circles around a lot of people that do not like Assad.

Assad is the president of Syria. He enjoys fairly effective control over his country.

It's difficult to see how Syria can have any long-term future with Assad there as president. Many people would never return to that country if that were the case.

There are still plenty of fighting forces inside of Syria who want to see Assad go. We should have been helping them from the very beginning.

I think there are real dangers to escalating military conflict with ISIS, and we need to be aware of them. But at the same time, you have to understand, you know, that this whole thing started with Bashar al-Assad and how he is the one who continued to escalate against the people of Syria who were trying to get democratic reform.

We don't see a peaceful Syria with Assad in there.