George W. Bush Quotes

The whole kind of post-World War I settlement that formed the modern Middle East is in danger of collapsing, and we can - we, the United States, you know, the preeminent power in the world - we can say that we want to ignore that, but how long can we avert our gaze? And how long can we stay out?

There is little doubt that an unstable Syria will destabilize the whole Middle East.

We see today that there is a growing understanding in the international community that the extremist regime in Tehran is not just Israel's problem, but rather an issue that the entire international community must grapple with.

One of the lessons from Sept. 11 is that America requires a long-term presence in those parts of the world that endanger us. This notion has become controversial, but frankly, the need could not be clearer.

Many defense experts have predicted that we face no greater threat from a single country than from Iran.

Mr. Speaker, in the years since we enacted our attack against Iraq, the threat from Iran has only grown more difficult, and our capacity to meet that threat actually has diminished. It is one of the reasons many of us opposed that action against Iraq.

If Iraq were to descend into chaos, the Europeans would feel the effects just as much as we would.

Iraq does not pose an imminent threat to the United States of any of its neighboring nations.

The central thesis of the American failure in Afghanistan - the one you'll hear from politicians and pundits and even scholars - was succinctly propounded by Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage: 'The war in Iraq drained resources from Afghanistan before things were under control'.

A U.S. invasion of Iraq could turn the whole region into a cauldron, and thus destroy the war on terrorism. A military campaign very likely would have to be followed by a large-scale, long-term military occupation.

If all Henry Kissinger contributed to the Middle East were a regional arms race, petrodollar addiction, Iranian radicalization, and the Tehran-Riyadh conflict, it would be bad enough. His legacy, however, is far worse than that: He has to answer for his role in the rise of political Islam.

If we end up with war in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran at the same time, can anyone see a more damaging prospect for America's world role than that?

Syrian refugees might be Isis, they may be the great Trojan horse of all time.

I mean, there was a serious international effort to say to Saddam Hussein: 'You're a threat'. And the 9/11 attacks accentuated that threat, as far as I'm concerned.

I think we have to knock out ISIS. Right now Syria is fighting ISIS. We have people who want to fight both at the same time. But Syria is no longer Syria; Syria is Russia and Iran, who she made strong, and Kerry and Obama made into a very powerful nation and very rich nation very, very quickly. Very, very quickly. I believe we have to get ISIS.

If war explodes in Sudan, it could have a destabilizing effect that creates more space for terrorist activity that could eventually be directed at our homeland.

A nuclear Iran is a threat to America's national security, and it is a threat to Israel's national security. We cannot afford to have a nuclear arms race in the most volatile region of the world.

Isil poses a threat to the people of Iraq and Syria, and the broader Middle East - including American citizens, personnel and facilities. If left unchecked, these terrorists could pose a growing threat beyond that region, including to the United States.

Iraq may have been a preview of that, but it's still redeemable if we get out fast. In a war with Iran, we'll get dragged down for 20 or 30 years. The world will condemn us. We will lose our position in the world.

I'll tell what reckless is. What reckless is is calling [Bashar] Assad a reformer. What reckless is allowing Russia to come into Crimea and Ukraine. What reckless is is inviting Russia into Syria to team with Iran. That is reckless. And the reckless people are the folks in the White House right now. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are the reckless people.

I think what history will show is that one of the most tragic results of the war in Iraq will be that although Sharon, the Likudites, the Neoconservatives in our country, President Bush and the Democratic party thought the war in Iraq and destroying Saddam would benefit Israeli security, we're seeing absolutely that the war in Iraq has probably put Israeli security in a more tenuous condition than it's been in since the founding of the Israeli state.

We have to figure out how to deal with Iran as the principal state sponsor of terrorism in the world.

The disastrous invasion of Iraq, something that I strongly opposed, has unraveled the region.

The most dangerous country for the U.S. now is Pakistan. ... We haven't been this vulnerable since the British burned Washington in 1814.

The war in Iraq is a serious situation. It's - it involves the worst foreign policy mistake in the history of this country. So we should take everything serious. This is - we find ourselves in a very deep hole. We need to find a way to dig out of it.