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 SCOWCROFTWho is the guarantor, if there is one, of a more stable world? It’s the United States.
More Brent Scowcroft Quotes
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Information technology has politicized the world’s population.
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If you look back at the first Gulf war, the Arabs sent forces, they sent money. So their interests in Iraq are clear, but they’re nowhere to be seen now. Why? Because right now, it’s dangerous to be seen as supporting the United States.
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The art of diplomacy is to take an opportunity and turn it into something.
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Progress is only possible if the United States and its allies work together.
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If Iraq were to descend into chaos, the Europeans would feel the effects just as much as we would.
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Yes, Israel’s our ally. But, are the Palestinians our enemy? No, they are not.
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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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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’m afraid that the United States is more isolated today than at any other time in my memory.
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Russia right now is searching for its soul. It’s trying to figure out what it really is.
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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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My point was that removing Saddam should not have been our highest priority. Fighting terrorism should have been our number one concern, followed by the Palestinian peace process.
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Since the days of Peter the Great, Russians have been maybe Europeans who didn’t share in the enlightenment and the reformation, or are they Mongol Asians with the European veneer. And they’ve gone back and forth.
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It’s not for nothing that the Iranians are known as rug merchants. They are.
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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.
BRENT SCOWCROFT






