A Quote by Rex W. Tillerson
I think continued actions by Bashar al-Assad clearly call into any question of him expecting to have any legitimacy to continue as the leader of Syria. With each of those actions, like attack with conventional weapons, barrel bombs and block humanitarian aid he really undermines his own legitimacy.
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I think the President Donald Trump was quite clear in his statement that he made to the American people that Syria's continued violations of U.N. resolutions and previous agreements that Syria had entered into regarding the Chemical Weapons Accord would no longer be tolerated. I think we have stood by and watched multiple weapon - chemical weapons attacks by the Syrian regime under the leadership of Bashar al-Assad.
[Bashar] Assad himself has said on several occasions recently that if the people of Syria don't believe I should be there in the future, then I would step - I would leave. He has said it. He has, on occasion, hinted that he wants a political settlement of one kind or another. I think it's up to his supporters, his strongest supporters, to make it clear to him that if you're going to save Syria, Assad has made a set of choices - barrel bombing children, gassing his people, torturing his people, engaging in starvation as a tactic of war.
Bashar al-Assad and those who still stand by him are now responsible for the deaths of more than 20,000 in Syria.
People talk about [Bashar] Assad running Syria. He doesn't control his own country. He's down to about 20, 25 percent of the country. What is this fiction that he is somehow the only person who can save Syria? There's - with Assad there, there is no Syria. So that's what the Iranians and the Russians need to really begin to focus in on.
I don't regret at all saying that if I saw Bashar al-Assad using chemical weapons on his people that that would change my assessments in terms of what we were or were not willing to do in Syria.
I think what we're hopeful is through this Syrian process, working with coalition members, working with the U.N., and in particular working through the Geneva process, that we can navigate a political outcome in which the Syrian people, in fact, will determine Bashar al-Assad's fate and his legitimacy.
The question's whether or not there's an American interest in the Civil War [in Syria]. The question is whether or not a military strike on [Bashar] Assad will cause him to be encouraged to use more weapons or discouraged. It's easy enough to say - and the president [Barack Obama] says though this will teach him a lesson - but his military strike is intended not to target him individually, not to bring about regime change.
[Vladimir] Putin supporting Bashar al-Assad, helping with the Syrian refugee crisis and, I think for any republican, he [Donald Trump] has got to stop saying this, because I was with him. I was with him and he said that, it was like, I'm out. I'm out. It's too crazy.
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.
Today, parliaments are more important because of the need of legitimacy, of the popular legitimacy, of public opinion legitimacy of politics. Parliaments are, at the end of the day, the only true legitimacy.
With a nonviolent movement we are still inviting a strong reaction from the government or ruling authorities. We are inviting a powerful reaction against ourselves. But it undermines the moral legitimacy of our current government. That is the path we need to pursue. Rather than reinforcing their legitimacy we need to undermine their legitimacy.
What we are is serious. And you see us in action, so it's not in personas. It's in actions and it's what we do. And that's why Russia was left on an island when it came to Syria. Everyone else isolated them with their connection with Bashar Assad and Iran.
In Syria, if [Bashar al-] Assad had just been a statesman and handed over the reigns in time, Syria would not be heading down the nightmare that it is today.
You do not separate the human being from the actions he does or the actions which surround him, but you see what it is like to break these actions up in different ways, to allow passion - and it is passion - to appear for each person in his own way.
Syria is lucky to have Bashar al-Assad as her President.
The other thing I said is the great irony is you will be back fighting against your own weapons. Had [Bashar] Assad been bombed when he used chemical weapons two years ago, ISIS would be in charge of all of Syria now.
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