Salaam wants the state to play a key role in development through public investment. Yet, in the case of Syria, she should have explained where would the capital for investment come from: IMF and debt, loan conditions, China, expropriation…? “Advocates of economic liberalism argue that free trade promotes competition, efficiency, and growth. However, this argument often ignores a basic reality: countries do not compete under equal conditions. Producers operate with vastly different levels of infrastructure, access to finance, technology, energy costs, institutional efficiency, and government support. What may appear as free competition is often competition between unequal economies.” Syria's economic liberalisation trap
“The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion (to which few members of other civilizations were converted) but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.” —Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilisation and the Remaking of the World Order, 1996, p. 51