Saddam’s ouster will not necessarily lead to the same result, since Iraq lacks democratic traditions. Democracy doesn’t just consist of holding elections.
BRENT SCOWCROFTAmerica has never seen itself as a national state like all others, but rather as an experiment in human freedom and democracy.
More Brent Scowcroft Quotes
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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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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.
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Yes, Israel’s our ally. But, are the Palestinians our enemy? No, they are not.
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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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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 is beyond dispute that Saddam Hussein is a menace.
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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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It’s not for nothing that the Iranians are known as rug merchants. They are.
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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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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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America wants to work with friends, with allies, with people of good will, to make this a better world.
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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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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.
BRENT SCOWCROFT