Top 306 Quotes & Sayings by Bashar al-Assad

Despite the ethnic diversity within each nation, the social fabric of the region by and large is one.

It is natural that we should always expect an Israeli attack, even when it does not threaten.

Israel ranks her priorities in the following way: security, land, and water.

Hizbullah is not a militia.

It is even more so when it comes to Iraq, which is a large Arab country with scientific, material, and human resources and is able to accomplish, at the least, what Lebanon accomplished, and more.

The problem is not the occupation, but how people deal with it.

Syria is geographically and politically in the middle of the Middle East.

We have more difficult circumstances than most of the Arab countries but in spite of that Syria is stable. Why? Because you have to be very closely linked to the beliefs of the people. This is the core issue.

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

America is interested in re-arranging the region as it sees fit.

Since its very inception, Israel has been a threat.

I am not a puppet. I was not made by the West to go to the West or to any other country.

None of us and none of the Arabs trust Israel.

As far as we are concerned, we Syria have not changed.

Is there an equality of power between America and Iraq? Definitely not; however, the Iraqi people are standing fast and are defending their land courageously.

The Israeli lobby has clout in the U.S., which means that re-arranging the region and controlling its resources one way or another, will serve Israel through its control over the American administration.

The most significant indicator that there is no disaster in Iraq is the fact that there is no exodus.

We are dealing with treachery and threats, which accompanied the establishment of Israel.

You cannot reform your society or institution without opening your mind.

No doubt that the U.S. is a super-power capable of conquering a relatively small country, but is it able to control it?

The U.S. and Britain are incapable of controlling all of Iraq.

I am Syrian, I was made in Syria, I have to live in Syria and die in Syria.

The logical thing is to implement the Arab Defense Agreement.

Armies are not only for offensives.

As soon as the legitimate Lebanese government is convinced that the conditions have ripened and that Lebanon is able to maintain stability on its own... Then, the Syrian forces will return to their homeland.

We, in Syria, our point of view stems from our experience.

The problem with the West is that they start with political reform going towards democracy. If you want to go towards democracy, the first thing is to involve the people in decision making, not to make it.

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

Israeli interests are not necessarily in harmony with the American interests.

It would be a mistake to link anything that Israel does to a certain circumstance. And it is a mistake to feel comfortable in any circumstance just because Israel did not act on it.

You in Lebanon, your power is no match to Israel. Israel, militarily, is more powerful than you and maybe it is more powerful than all the Arab countries, or most of them.

When Lebanon started its resistance it was a small and divided country.

When our interests matched, the Americans have been good to us, and when the interests differed, they wanted us to mold ourselves to them, which we refused.

When we analyze this war in a materialistic way and ask when is it going to end and who will be the winner and the loser, it means that we do not see the endgame.

Worry does not mean fear, but readiness for the confrontation.

It should be known that Israel is based on treachery.

Today, the Iraqi citizen sees that America is coming and wants to occupy his country and kill him, and he is willing to experience for himself what happened in Palestine.

Israel does not care about the international public opinion.

Lebanon was under Israeli occupation, up to its capital, but we did not consider that a disaster. Why? Because it was very clear that there are ways to resist.

Circumstances don't matter, only my state of being matters. What state of being are you choosing?

[Chemical weapons] isn't about what the United States believe in, it's about the reality that we have, and this reality, we own it, we don't have to discuss it.

Whenever you have a war, the civilians and the innocents will pay the price. That's in any war, any war is a bad war.

It's our right to defend our country against any kind of invasion.

[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.

We have hopes that we can see rational American presidents; fair, obey the international law, deal with other countries according to mutual respect, parity, etc., but we all know that this is only wishful thinking and fantasy.

The only one who can fight for these values like democracy and freedoms are the people of any country or any society, not the foreigners.

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.

[The Jews] tried to kill the principles of all religions with the same mentality in which they betrayed Jesus Christ and the same way they tried to betray and kill the Prophet Muhammad.

There is no such things as "Islamic terrorism," because terrorism differs from Islam. There's just terrorism, not Islamic terrorism. But the term "Islamic terrorism" has become widespread.

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

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

[A conflict of Sunni vs. Shia] is in the mind of the Saudis, and this is in the minds of the Wahabists. [The Iranians] actually what they are doing is the opposite. They tried to open channels with the Saudi, with many other Islamic entities in the region in order to talk about Islamic society, not Sunni and Shi'ite societies.

I don't want to talk about methods of killing. But what is the difference between a bomb worn on the body and one dropped from an airplane? Both of them kill people.

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.

Foreigners cannot bring freedom, cannot bring democracy, because this is related to the culture, to the different factors that affect or influence that society. You cannot bring it, you cannot import it.

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

Sometimes you may kill tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands with very primitive armaments.

No government in the world kills its people, unless it's led by a crazy person.

The problem with every American candidate regarding the presidency, I am not talking only about this campaign or elections, but generally, that they say something during the campaign and they do the opposite after the campaign.

We're not like the American administration, we're not social media administration or government. We are a government that deals with reality. When we have evidence, we'll announce it.