We always say we have wishful thinking that the Unites States would be unbiased, respect the international law, doesn't interfere in other countries around the world, and of course to stop supporting terrorists in Syria.
Let's be realistic, every terrorist came to Syria, he came through Turkey with the support of [Recep Tayyip] Erdogan. So, fighting those terrorists is like fighting the army of Erdogan, not the Turkish army, the army of Erdogan.
Of course, when Secretary-General is objective, he can play an important role in dealing with different officials in the United Nations in order to bring the policies of the different states - mainly Russia and the United States - toward more cooperation and more stability regarding Syria.
I write in Arabic and prefer writing my stories by hand. I need a cup of tea or coffee when I write. When I was in Syria, I was addicted to tea, but now I'm addicted to Starbucks.
In the eighties, we asked for international coalition against terrorism after the Muslim Brotherhood crisis in Syria when they started killing, of course they were defeated at that time. We asked for the same thing. So, this is a long-term policy that we base our policy on for years now.
I'm not talking about him; I'm talking about the countries that go to support [Antonio] Guterres plan, because he needs the support of other countries, he cannot achieve that plan while many countries in the world are still supporting the terrorists in Syria. So, of course we support it, whether helping the people to live, to go back to their country, and to live in security without terrorists.
The first thing Syrian refugees want is to be able to live within Syria. That means help, humanitarian help, the way we understand it, food, medical care, any other, let's say, basics for the daily life.
Fighting the terrorists in Syria is not only in the interest of Syria or the Syrian people; in the interest of the Middle East, of Europe itself - something that many officials in the West don't see or don't realize or don't acknowledge - and in the interest of the Russian people, because they have been facing terrorists for decades now.
The Russians always base their policies on values, and these values are the sovereignty of other countries, the international law, respecting other people, other cultures, so they don't interfere in whatever is related to the future of Syria or the Syrian people.
We are fully free, not partially, fully free, in everything related to the future of Syria.
Russia is very important, Iran is very important, Hezbollah is very important. All of them are important. Each one made important achievements against the terrorists in Syria, so it's difficult to say who is more important than the other.
[Hezbollah, Iran, and Russia] are here because they could offer very essential and important help, because the situation that we are facing now is not only about a few terrorists from within Syria; it's like international war against Syria.
Terrorists have been supported by tens of foreign countries, so Syria alone wouldn't be able to face this kind of war without the help of its friends.
If you don't win and the terrorists win, Syria wouldn't exist anymore.
We can say, you can win the war only when you restore stability in Syria.
We have an even worse situation in Syria, where the United States' allies are actually supporting people who are violently opposed to the United States, who are dangerous, radical Islamist fanatics. I mean, where is the logic of that? When are we going to call the Saudis on the support of intolerant, bigoted, fanatical types of Islam? When are we going to call this ally?
You want to bring the Assad regime down? You have to beat the Russians and the Iranians in Syria. That is not going to happen. Like it, don't like it - it's not going to be very pleasant.
If past behavior is any indication, we're in a lot of trouble with Hillary Clinton in the White House, as well, who has promised to start a no-fly zone in Syria, which amounts to a declaration of war against Russia.
I don't want to have, with all the problems America has and all of the problems that you see going on, hundreds of thousands of people coming in from Syria when we know nothing about them. We know nothing about their values and we know nothing about their love for our country.
We see everything, we see what's going on in Syria, we see what's going on with the refugees. What can you do about it? And we have to do something.
Our process inside the United States government has gotten much better at making sure we touch all possible source of information about a refugee. The interview process has gotten more robust, so we've gotten our act together in that respect. The challenge remains, especially with respect to folks coming from Syria, we're unlikely to have anything in our holdings. That is, with people coming from Iraq, the United States government was there for a very long period of time. We had biometrics, we had source information. We're unlikely to have that kind of picture about someone coming from Syria.
The director of the FBI...said we can't know for certain who these people are coming from Syria.
The small and bullying leader of Russia is now dictating terms to the United States, to the point where all the United States of America, the greatest nation on Earth, just withdraws from talks about a ceasefire while Vladimir Putin puts a missile defense system in Syria while he marshals the forces and begin - look, we have got to begin to lean into this with strong, broad-shouldered American leadership.
We're making progress. Our military is assisting in Iraq. And we're hoping that within the year we'll be able to push ISIS out of Iraq and then, you know, really squeeze them in Syria.
I think Hillary Clinton is more suspicious, clearly tougher on Russian policy in Ukraine, Georgia, Syria; more willing to support sanctions; not against negotiating with Putin, but I would say tougher and more skeptical. And Donald Trump has talked about revisiting policy towards Ukraine, revisiting policy about sanctions towards Russia, not as quick to criticize Putin for what he might be up to in Syria and propping up the regime there - so just seems to be more open to the possibilities of working out some kind of a - I guess you'd call a modus vivendi with Putin.
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