Quotes About Syria

The dead cannot speak. But hitherto unknown information has emerged from the confidential archives of the Syrian presidency and foreign ministry, published in a new book by Bouthaina Shaaban, who spent ten years as Hafez's interpreter and is still an adviser to his son Bashar.

There is little doubt that an unstable Syria will destabilize the whole Middle East.

I was very upset in August of 2012 when President Obama declared a red line against Syria and said if these chemical attacks continue, that's it, we're done, we're getting involved and we did nothing. When you're the commander in chief, the buck stops with you.

An intelligence officer from a Middle Eastern country neighboring Syria told me that ISIS members "say they are always pleased when sophisticated weapons are sent to anti-Assad groups of any kind, because they can always get the arms off them by threats of force or cash payments.

An intelligence officer from a Middle Eastern country neighboring Syria told me that ISIS members "say they are always pleased when sophisticated weapons are sent to anti-Assad groups of any kind, because they can always get the arms off them by threats of force or cash payments." These are not empty boasts. Arms supplied by US allies such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar to anti-Assad forces in Syria have been captured regularly in Iraq.

US policy of recruiting Syrian "moderates" to fight both ISIS and Assad, Biden said that in Syria the US had found "that there was no moderate middle because the moderate middle are made up of shopkeepers, not soldiers." Seldom have the real forces at work in creating ISIS and the present crisis in Iraq and Syria been so accurately described.

As so often during the US military intervention in Iraq between 2003 and 2011, there was excessive focus by the media on the actions of Western governments as the prime mover of events. This was accompanied by an inadequate understanding of the significance of developments on the ground in Iraq and Syria as the force really driving the crisis in both countries.

Syria: never the country I called home, but certainly my homeland. - Nour Malas

Importantly, rather than being solely concerned with U.N. approval, the president must come first to our own Congress for authorization, and I urge him to do so. Finally, I understand the impulse to take action in Syria; however, I hope the president carefully considers this matter and resists the call from some to use military force in Syria.

Non-fiction about personal subjects is going to attract more user comments than a foreign correspondent writing from Syria - unfortunately.

Populated by the usual detritus of rabble.ca contributors, Canadian Peace Alliance retreads and Press TV dingbats, the Syria Solidarity Movement is unambiguously and unashamedly pro-Assad.

If Syria collapses completely, the United States and the world would have to consider who, and what, fills the vacuum.

ISIS filled the vacuum in Iraq and Syria created by a lack of effective governance.

Although it is true that Hizballah is organized, inspired, financed, and armed by Iran, its main bases in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley are under Syrian military control.

With respect to Syria, we are going to continue to work as we have over the last five, six years to push towards a political transition and settlement.

The dimensions opened up by this decision were not exclusively those of the afterlife, however. The enthronement as archbishop of Canterbury of a scholar who had studied in Syria provided converts in Britain with the glimpse of a thrillingly exotic world.

By July, oil prices were beginning to subside.13 But the consequences of the offensive were startling. With its fanatic but well-organized military drive, ISIS had redrawn, at least for a time, the map at the heart of the Middle East. It now controlled a contiguous territory that reached from north-central Syria all the way across Iraq to Mosul—almost the same distance as from London to Edinburgh—with as many as eight million people under its rule.

the consequences of the offensive were startling. With its fanatic but well-organized military drive, ISIS had redrawn, at least for a time, the map at the heart of the Middle East. It now controlled a contiguous territory that reached from north-central Syria all the way across Iraq to Mosul—almost the same distance as from London to Edinburgh—with as many as eight million people under its rule.

Liberty needs the state and the laws. But it is not given by the state or the elites controlling it. It is taken by regular people, by society. Society needs to control the state so that it protects and promotes people's liberty rather than quashing it like Assad did in Syria before 2011. Liberty needs a mobilized society that participates in politics, protests when it's necessary, and votes the government out of power when it can.

In 2 Macc. 2:14-15 it is stated that, after the devastating war waged against the Jews by Antiochus IV (called Epiphanes) of Syria, Judas Maccabaeus, who led a Jewish revolt against the Syrians, collected together all the books scattered in the war. This activity, about 164 B.C., probably had a decisive role in the canonization of the Hebrew Bible, including an official listing of its canonical books.

The ultimate goal is to change Syria's behaviour on a variety of issues - on its interference in Lebanese internal affairs, on its support for Palestinian terrorist groups that oppose the Palestinian Authority, on, most importantly, acting as a land bridge between Iran and Hezbollah, where Hezbollah gets all its arms.

Syria is the proud heir of an ancient civilization that has a unique spectrum of minorities that encompasses Muslims and Christians of various denominations. There are at least ten such ethnic and religious groups.

You cannot deny reality: that ISIS is systematically attempting to exterminate Christianity, to exterminate the Yazidi community, to exterminate other religious minorities in vast areas in Iraq and Syria.

While all Alawites fear vengeance against their entire community should Assad fall, there are varying degrees of loyalty to the Assads.