Inside Syria Quotes

“Nationalist Arab countries concluded that the United States would continue to back Israel, while the Soviet Union did not. So immediately after the Suez War, Syria signed a military agreement with the Soviet Union. The Soviets began shipping planes and tanks to Syria. Their alliance survived the collapse of the Soviet Union and continues with Russia today.”
― Reese Erlich, Inside Syria: The Backstory of Their Civil War and What the World Can Expect

“We do know, however, that when the colonialists drew arbitrary maps and intensified ethnic/religious tensions, they sowed problems that continue to this day. While”
― Reese Erlich, Inside Syria: The Backstory of Their Civil War and What the World Can Expect

“The Obama administration and major US media portray Syria as a quagmire of religious groups fighting centuries-old battles. The reality is quite different. For many years, Syrians lived peacefully with one another. Syria was a secular dictatorship where dissidents faced torture and jail for criticizing Assad, but people largely ignored religious differences. Once the fighting began, however, leaders on both sides used religion to rally their troops. Rebels relied on the Sunni Muslim majority. Assad appealed to minority groups such as Alawites, Christians, and Shia Muslims.”
― Reese Erlich, Inside Syria: The Backstory of Their Civil War and What the World Can Expect

“While the United States claimed to be promoting moderate, secular rebels, in fact the strongest groups held rightist, Islamic views. In”
― Reese Erlich, Inside Syria: The Backstory of Their Civil War and What the World Can Expect

“By the beginning of 2012, foreign powers were arming the rebels, each seeking groups that would carry out its political goals in post-Assad Syria. Adventurers,”
― Reese Erlich, Inside Syria: The Backstory of Their Civil War and What the World Can Expect

“Syria's continued alliance with Iran became one of the main justifications of Western attempts to overthrow Assad. Tom Donilon, President Obama's national-security adviser, said in 2011 that the “end of the Assad regime would constitute Iran's greatest setback in the region yet—a strategic blow that will further shift the balance of power in the region against Iran.”14”
― Reese Erlich, Inside Syria: The Backstory of Their Civil War and What the World Can Expect

“At least US and Iranian leaders agree on something: Assad's downfall would tremendously weaken Iran's regional influence. From the beginning of the Syrian uprising, Iran worried that “if the Assad government fell, the replacement would have much stronger ties with the US government and Israeli government,” according to Professor Foad Izadi, an assistant professor at the University of Tehran's Faculty of World Studies. He told me, “that was the dilemma that Iran had.”9”
― Reese Erlich, Inside Syria: The Backstory of Their Civil War and What the World Can Expect

“So what conclusions can we draw? Both sides quite possibly used sarin. Both sides lied and manipulated evidence. At a minimum, the Obama administration exaggerated its case to justify a military attack on Syria. At worst, the White House fabricated intelligence. Bottom line: no one has yet presented convincing evidence of who perpetrated the horrific Al Ghouta attack. But one thing remains clear: the Al Ghouta massacre changed US policy, and not in the way President Obama intended.”
― Reese Erlich, Inside Syria: The Backstory of Their Civil War and What the World Can Expect

“The US invasion of Iraq, which was supposed to spread democracy throughout the region, actually had the opposite effect.”
― Reese Erlich, Inside Syria: The Backstory of Their Civil War and What the World Can Expect