It’s not for nothing that the Iranians are known as rug merchants. They are.
BRENT SCOWCROFTSince 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.
More Brent Scowcroft Quotes
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Progress is only possible if the United States and its allies work together.
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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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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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Yes, Israel’s our ally. But, are the Palestinians our enemy? No, they are not.
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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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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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Information technology has politicized the world’s population.
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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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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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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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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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It is beyond dispute that Saddam Hussein is a menace.
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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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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