If Iraq were to descend into chaos, the Europeans would feel the effects just as much as we would.
BRENT SCOWCROFTThe art of diplomacy is to take an opportunity and turn it into something.
More Brent Scowcroft Quotes
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The Iraqis need help establishing a government. We have to provide them with security.
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Democracy doesn’t just consist of holding elections.
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But, if you believe we should go around the world overturning regimes to make little United States, I don’t agree with that, because I don’t think we’re capable of doing that.
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Information technology has politicized the world’s population.
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America is stronger than any state probably since the Roman Empire. But we can’t do what used to be done with that kind of strength.
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It is beyond dispute that Saddam Hussein is a menace.
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Europeans are familiar with terrorism and violence. We have not experienced a true conflict on our soil in a hundred years, and especially not one that involved 3,000 dead.
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But the central point is that any campaign against Iraq, whatever the strategy, cost and risks, is certain to divert us for some indefinite period from our war on terrorism.
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It’s not for nothing that the Iranians are known as rug merchants. They are.
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Saddam’s ouster will not necessarily lead to the same result, since Iraq lacks democratic traditions. Democracy doesn’t just consist of holding elections.
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America wants to work with friends, with allies, with people of good will, to make this a better world.
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The radical elements in Islam are very dangerous. They want to achieve a return to the Islamic purity of the Middle Ages.
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I think America has to do more than be a broker now. Because both the Palestinians are weak and Israel is very weak.
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Much of what we know about mathematics and trade comes from the Arabs. Then came stagnation, and now they’re the West’s whipping boy. This is a problem that cannot be solved overnight, and certainly not militarily.
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To sum up, the position we took was that since we didn’t know the internal situation in Iraq nor Saddam Hussein, that our best bet was to take counsel from the people who did know him and who did deal with him.
BRENT SCOWCROFT