‘SYRIA won’t be a puppet state for the West,’ President Bashar al-Assad has said in an interview with ‘Paris Match’ Magazine.
The interviewer began by asking President Assad if he felt responsible for the conflict in his country. He replied: ‘We cannot say that we regret fighting terrorism since the early days of this crisis.
However, this doesn’t mean that there weren’t mistakes made in practice. There are always mistakes.
‘Let’s be honest: had Qatar not paid money to those terrorists at that time, and had Turkey not supported them logistically, and had not the West supported them politically, things would have been different.’
In answer to further questions, Assad denied the Syrian Army used ‘excessive use of force during this war’, saying: ‘When a terrorist attacks you with weapons, how do you defend yourself and your people, with dialogue?! The army uses weapons when the other side uses them.’
He added: ‘If we haven’t been defending the people, we wouldn’t have been able to stand all this pressure. Consequently, saying that we are shelling civilians doesn’t make any sense.’
He was asked if refugees fleing Syria were ‘allied with terrorists?’
President Assad said: ‘No, no. Those who left Syria are generally people who left because of terrorism. There are those who support terrorism, and there are those who support the state but left because of the security situation. There is also a significant number of those who do not support any side.’
Assad was asked: ‘From a military perspective, do you have the means which enable you to win this war?’
He replied: ‘Now we are fighting states, not only gangs. Billions of dollars are spent on those gangs. They receive arms from different countries, including Turkey. So, it is not an easy war from a military perspective.
‘Nevertheless, the Syrian Army is winning in many places. On the other hand, no one can say how this war will end or when. But the major war for them in the beginning was how to win the hearts of the Syrians; and they have lost this war.
‘The communities which embraced terrorists have become very small, and that is the reason why the army is winning. So, we have to look at this war militarily, socially, and politically.’
In answer to a suggestion the insurgents have not lost yet, Assad stressed: ‘This is not a war between two armies where you can say that they took a certain part and we took another part. The war now is not like that. We are talking about terrorist groups which suddenly infiltrate a city or a village. That’s why it’s going to be a long and difficult war.’
It was put to Assad: ‘Many people say that the solution lies in your departure. Do you believe that your departure is the solution?’
The Syrian President replied: ‘The president of any state in the world takes office through constitutional measures and leaves office through constitutional measures as well. No President can be installed or deposed through chaos.
‘The tangible evidence for this is the outcome of the French policy when they attacked Gadaffi. What was the result? Chaos ensued after Gadaffi’s departure. So, was his departure the solution? Have things improved, and has Libya become a democracy?
‘The state is like a ship; and when there is a storm, the captain doesn’t run away and leave his ship to sink. If passengers on that ship decided to leave, the captain should be the last one to leave, not the first.’
He was asked: ‘Do you fear facing the same fate and to meet your death like Saddam Hussein and Gadaffi?’
Assad retorted: ‘A captain doesn’t think of life and death, he thinks of saving his ship. If the ship sinks, everybody will die, so we would rather save the country.
‘But I want to stress an important point here. Remaining president had never been my objective, before, during, or after the crisis. But we as Syrians will never accept that Syria become a western puppet state. This is one of our most important objectives and principles.’
The interview then said: ‘Let’s talk about ISIS. Some people say that the Syrian regime encouraged the rise of Islamic extremists in order to divide the opposition. How do you respond to that?’
Assad replied: ‘In Syria we have a state, not a regime. Let’s agree on the terms first. Second, assuming that what you are saying is true, that we supported ISIS, this means that we have asked this organisation to attack us, attack military airports, kill hundreds of soldiers, and occupy cities and villages. Where is the logic in that? What do we gain from it?
‘Dividing and weakening the opposition, as you are saying? We do not need to undermine those elements of the opposition. The West itself is saying that it was a fake opposition. This is what Obama himself said.
‘So, this supposition is wrong, but what is the truth? The truth is that ISIS was created in Iraq in 2006. It was the United States which occupied Iraq, not Syria. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was in American prisons, not in Syrian prisons. So, who created ISIS, Syria or the United States?’
He was asked: ‘The Americans, in their war against ISIS, are tactical (temporary) allies. Do you still think that their intervention constitutes a violation of national sovereignty?’
Assad stressed: ‘First, you said that it is tactical, and this is an important point. You know that tactics without a strategy do not produce results, so it will not defeat terrorism.
‘It is an illegal intervention, first because it is not authorised by a Security Council resolution, and second because it did not respect the sovereignty of a state, Syria, in this case. So, it is an illegal intervention, and consequently constitutes a violation of sovereignty.’
It was put to Assad that the US-led alliance’s airstrikes ‘are helping you, and one reason why US Secretary of Defence Chuck Hagel resigned is that he believed that they support your government and your positions’.
Assad warned: ‘Terrorism cannot be destroyed from the air, and you cannot achieve results on the ground without land forces who know the geographical details of the regions and move in tandem with the airstrikes.
‘That’s why, and after two months of the alliance’s airstrikes, there are no tangible results on the ground in that direction. And that’s why saying that the alliance’s airstrikes are helping us is not true.
‘Had these airstrikes been serious and effective, I would have said that they would be certainly useful to us. But we are the ones fighting the battles against ISIS on the ground, and we haven’t felt any change, particularly that Turkey is still extending direct support to ISIS in those regions.’
Assad was asked: ‘Are there chemical weapons in Syria today, yes or no?’
He said: ‘No. When we announced this, it was a clear announcement, and when we decided to abandon chemical weapons, our decision was final.’
The interviewer pressed him: ‘But US Secretary of State John Kerry accuses you of violating the agreement because you used chlorine. Is that true?’
Assad replied: ‘You can find chlorine in any house in Syria. Everyone has chlorine, and any group can use it. But we haven’t used it because we have traditional weapons which are more effective than chlorine, and we do not need to use it.
‘We are fighting terrorists, and using traditional weapons without concealing that or being shy about it. So, we don’t need chlorine. These accusations do not surprise us; for when did the Americans say anything true about the crisis in Syria?’
The interviewer again pressed him: ‘Have you used chemical weapons?’
Assad insisted: ‘We haven’t used this kind of weapons; and had we used it anywhere, tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people would have died. It’s impossible for these weapons to kill, as it was claimed last year, only one hundred people or two hundred people, particularly in areas where hundreds of thousands, and maybe millions, of Syrians live.’
In a later question, the interviewer said: ‘People describe you as being very close to your children. How do you explain to them what is happening to your country when you return home in the evening?’
Assad replied: ‘Of course, this discussion goes on in every Syrian house now; and the most difficult thing in this discussion is when you deal with children whose social consciousness has developed during this crisis.
‘There are two basic questions asked, not only in our family but in many families. The first question: how can people who believe or say they are defending God and Islam kill and murder? This is a case which is not easy to explain, and children ask whether these people know that they are wrong.
‘And the answer here is that there are those who know but make use of religion for private purposes, and there are ignorant people who do not know that religion is good. They think, instead, that religion means killing.
‘The second question: why does the West launch an aggression against us, and why does it support terrorists and destruction?
‘Of course, they do not say the West in general, they specify certain countries, including the United States, France, and Britain. Why do they do that? Have we done anything to hurt them? We also explain to them that people are something, and states are something else.’
