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.
BRENT SCOWCROFTBut 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.
More Brent Scowcroft Quotes
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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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Who is the guarantor, if there is one, of a more stable world? It’s the United States.
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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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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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I don’t think the Chinese look out at the world and want to overturn the system.
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Information technology has politicized the world’s population.
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After all, we didn’t bring democracy to Germany in 1945; Hitler destroyed democracy there first.
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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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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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Democracy doesn’t just consist of holding elections.
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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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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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It is beyond dispute that Saddam Hussein is a menace.
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Progress is only possible if the United States and its allies work together.
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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