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 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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Who is the guarantor, if there is one, of a more stable world? It’s the United States.
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Democracy doesn’t just consist of holding elections.
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The radical elements in Islam are very dangerous.
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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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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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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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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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We have not been forthcoming about explaining a security relationship for the region, in which Iran can feel secure and thus maybe willing to do something.
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The art of diplomacy is to take an opportunity and turn it into something.
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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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I’m afraid that the United States is more isolated today than at any other time in my memory.
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Information technology has politicized the world’s population.
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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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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 all, we didn’t bring democracy to Germany in 1945; Hitler destroyed democracy there first.
BRENT SCOWCROFT