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.
BRENT SCOWCROFTIf Iraq were to descend into chaos, the Europeans would feel the effects just as much as we would.
More Brent Scowcroft Quotes
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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.
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After all, we didn’t bring democracy to Germany in 1945; Hitler destroyed democracy there first.
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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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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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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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Information technology has politicized the world’s population.
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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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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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I’m afraid that the United States is more isolated today than at any other time in my memory.
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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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Democracy doesn’t just consist of holding elections.
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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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The art of diplomacy is to take an opportunity and turn it into something.
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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.
BRENT SCOWCROFT