Nidal

“You know what I did? I left troops to take the oil. I took the oil. The only troops I have are taking the oil, they’re protecting the oil. I took over the oil.”

  • On Defections and Developments in Syria: PBS NewsHour Interview with Bassam Haddad and David Lesch
    http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/6771/on-defections-and-developments-in-syria_pbs-newsho

    It’s also important to recognize that still at the top levels in the military and security apparatus, there are still some Sunnis. And in society, there are still large pockets, if not very large pockets, of support, not necessarily for the Assad regime, but for a prevention of a fall into the abyss.

    What a lot of the reporting I think has been ignoring, especially from the West, is that Syria is falling apart not just as a regime, but as a country. And that is actually the biggest tragedy that I think is being shoved aside, in favor of focusing on cliche-ish things such as dictatorship and democracy in a situation where even if the Assad regime falls we are looking at a very, very tough process of reconstructing the country.

    And certain parties benefit, and these are the parties we should actually look at, including conservative Arab states, some European states, and, of course, the United States.