It’s not for nothing that the Iranians are known as rug merchants. They are.
BRENT SCOWCROFTTo 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.
More Brent Scowcroft Quotes
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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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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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Russia right now is searching for its soul. It’s trying to figure out what it really is.
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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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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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After the ’30s, we said, “no more Munichs.” And it got us in a lot of problems. Then we said, “No more Vietnams.” Now if we say, “No more Iraqs,” the next one won’t be an Iraq. It will be something different. You can’t learn lessons.
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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.
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America has never seen itself as a national state like all others, but rather as an experiment in human freedom and democracy.
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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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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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Information technology has politicized the world’s population.
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It is beyond dispute that Saddam Hussein is a menace.
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After all, we didn’t bring democracy to Germany in 1945; Hitler destroyed democracy there first.
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I don’t think the Chinese look out at the world and want to overturn the system.
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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.
BRENT SCOWCROFT