Fighting Terrorism the Sacred Duty

 His Excellency President Bashar Hafez Al-Assad was very clear and definite in showing that the ongoing against Syria and the Syria steadfast People and hero Army was but a part of a “sinister plot for the whole region, which will not stop at our borders”:

• This spectacle started to unravel during the invasion of Iraq. Our position at the time was neither based on an irrational desire for confrontation nor on having an adversarial position to be applauded. We rejected the invasion of Iraq because we saw it as the beginning of division and sectarianism. It was a real concern towards a dangerous situation we were convinced was inevitable.
• We also warned, from the very beginning, all those we engaged with that what was happening would not stop at Syria’s borders. It would spread because terrorism doesn’t recognize national borders.
• Isn’t what we are seeing today in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and all the countries that have been struck by the malady of the fake spring tangible evidence of the credibility of our repeated warnings?
•  Soon we shall see Arab and regional countries that have supported terrorism also paying a painful price. Many of them will understand, though too late, that the battles fought by the Syrian people in defense of their homeland transcend our national borders.
• It is actually in defense of many other nations that, sooner or later, will suffer from the same terrorism, either as a result of the shortsightedness of their leaders and their absolute ignorance of the real interests of their nations, or due to their lack of understanding of our region and how to deal with its people.
• Did we need to wait twelve years to understand that invading Iraq would only bring terrorism and division to our region? 
• Wasn’t our experience with the criminal Muslim Brotherhood in the 1980’s enough for us to learn our lesson, or did we have to wait thirty years for the arrival of executioners and cannibals, to realise that terrorism and exploiting religion are two sides of the same coin?
• Who do not protect their country, who do not defend it and preserve it, neither deserve it nor deserve to live in it.
• We took the decision to proceed on two parallel tracks: striking terrorism mercilessly on the one hand, and facilitating local reconciliations for those who were misled and wanted to abandon their wrong path on the other.
• We were convinced, from the very beginning, that effective solutions would have to be purely Syrian without any role for foreigners unless they were genuine supporters. All those who returned to the right path found the state to be a compassionate mother: angry with her ungrateful children, but forgiving when they genuinely repent. Today, I repeat my call to all those who have been misled to lay down their arms, because we will not stop fighting terrorism and striking at it until we restore safety and security to every inch of Syria.
• The states that continue to support terrorism in Syria have tried to destroy all aspects of life within it.  The killing, which targeted Syrians from all walks of life without discrimination or exception was concurrent with the systematic destruction of our infrastructure, which took decades to build and consumed the efforts, money, sweat and blood of generations of Syrians. 

Dr. Mohammad Abdo Al-Ibrahim