A Quote by Elliott Abrams

The Assad regime has lost the consent of the governed, and it is difficult to see how a replacement Alawite regime would be able to regain this consent. — © Elliott Abrams
The Assad regime has lost the consent of the governed, and it is difficult to see how a replacement Alawite regime would be able to regain this consent.
The public needs to know the kinds of things a government does in its name, or the 'consent of the governed' is meaningless... The consent of the governed is not consent if it is not informed.
In the fight against ISIL, we cannot rely on an Assad regime that terrorizes its people; a regime that will never regain the legitimacy it has lost. Instead, we must strengthen the opposition as the best counterweight to extremists like ISIL, while pursuing the political solution necessary to solve Syria's crisis once and for all.
Once one accepts the premise of the Declaration of Independence - that governments derive "their just powers from the consent of the governed" - it follows that the governed must, in order to exercise their right of consent, have full freedom of expression.
I see a bit of a contradiction between the fight against the Islamic State and the desire to remove the Assad regime. And even if you work with Russia, I'm just not sold that working with Russia is an effective way to hasten the end of the Assad regime or to enact any type of punitive measures.
It's a brutal regime, in the Assad regime, that is willing to take any measure, no matter how immoral or war criminal acts, to persecute its goals.
Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad belongs to the small Alawite sect and is therefore considered a heretic by many Sunnis; al-Assad runs a secular regime, and therefore he is considered by Sunni militants to be an apostate, and he is inflicting a total war on his Sunni population.
Our intervention to destabilize the Assad regime has really made the chaos worse in Syria. And if you were to get rid of Assad today, I would actually worry about the 2 million Christians that are protected by Assad.
As long as women consent to be unjustly governed, they will be; but directly women say: "We withhold our consent," we will not be governed any longer as long as government is unjust.
The consent of the governed is not consent if it is not informed.
Sunni are the majority of the [Syria], 60 to 65 percent. They've been ruled by [Bashar] Assad, who represents a minority Alawite element, which is about 12, 13 percent. And because of the choices Assad made, it's very difficult to see how you resolve this without buy-in from the Sunni world.
I am no apologist for Fidel's [Castro] regime. It is, after all, a totalitarian regime. So I would like to see that change.
We set up government by consent of the governed, and the Bill of Rights denies those in power any legal opportunity to coerce that consent. Authority here is to be controlled by public opinion, not public opinion by authority.
When [Jean-Paul] Sartre was asked whether or not he would live under a communist regime he said, "No, for others it's fine, but for me, no." He said it! So it's hard to say just how intellectual his stance is. How can you think that never in your life would you go to live in a communist regime and still say it's fine for everybody? A very difficult thing, that, but Sartre managed it.
That is what I want: I want a better Saudi Arabia. I don't see myself as an opposition. I'm not calling for the overthrow of the regime, because I know it's not possible and is too risky, and there is no one to overthrow the regime. I'm just calling for reform of the regime.
Control is an illusion. You will never be able to control anything, any situation, or anyone without consent. So in actuality there is no control, there is only consent!
Our constitutions purport to be established by 'the people,' and, in theory, 'all the people' consent to such government as the constitutions authorize. But this consent of 'the people' exists only in theory. It has no existence in fact. Government is in reality established by the few; and these few assume the consent of all the rest, without any such consent being actually given.
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