Joshua Landis Quotations

I don't know know how they're going to get Saad Hariri back home.

This is an anti-America alliance. My guess is that the US will end up in a weaker position than it started. The war on terror has alienated the Muslim countries who now believe that America is the big bad ogre and specter of imperialism.

There?s been no movement toward democracy. The economic troubles Syria confronts will force reforms, but it?s unlikely that economic reforms will bring more democracy.

It's a declaration that they're not going to cooperate.

Syria's in for a very dark period ahead, ... The president is in a real struggle to keep people close to him.

Syria is looking for more time. It is promising cooperation on a broad scale but has launched diplomatic contacts to try to slow things down,

It offered a secular vision of Syria that would dismantle very serious religious splits.

They are going to grab Syria by the throat and squeeze and shake, and see what kind of change falls out of the Syrian pockets.... It's going to be the harshest isolation they can manufacture.

They are worried their people will be held in Lebanon. They are trying to get guarantees this is not going to be out of their control. They want to bargain but have no bargaining power.

They worry they are the ones that are going to eat all the revenge and discrimination, if the state falls, they are going to pay the price for the privileges of a few.

The family is a red line. There's no doubt about that.

In the Middle East, they're being compressed, catapulted through the same debates that tore American society over decades in a short period of time. And the stakes are very high.