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.
BRENT SCOWCROFTAfter all, we didn’t bring democracy to Germany in 1945; Hitler destroyed democracy there first.
More Brent Scowcroft Quotes
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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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The art of diplomacy is to take an opportunity and turn it into something.
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It’s not for nothing that the Iranians are known as rug merchants. They are.
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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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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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It is beyond dispute that Saddam Hussein is a menace.
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The radical elements in Islam are very dangerous.
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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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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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The Iraqis need help establishing a government. We have to provide them with security.
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Yes, Israel’s our ally. But, are the Palestinians our enemy? No, they are not.
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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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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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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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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.
BRENT SCOWCROFT