Christopher Hitchens Quotes

You know, Arabs are critical of United States foreign policy, but they also associate the U.S. with democratic principles and opportunity.

American influence is not what it used to be.

The time has come to recognize that the U.S. will continue to exercise unprecedented power in a world where international rules are still unreliable and where security and advancing of the free democratic order still depend significantly on the possession and use of military might.

Never before has the gap between American power and its legitimacy been so great.

Americans do not recognize the effect of American power in the world. … People all over the world ask, “Why can’t Americans see how American power affects us?”

America is a force for good in the Middle East.

American power worldwide is at its historic zenith.

War on terrorism defines the central preoccupation of the United States in the world today, and it does reflect in my view a rather narrow and extremist vision of foreign policy of the world's first superpower, of a great democracy, with genuinely idealistic traditions.

The U.S. has intervened more often in more countries farther from its own shores than has any power in modern history.

To call the American role in the world imperial was, for many who did so, a way of asserting that the United States was misusing its power beyond its borders and, in so doing, subverting its founding political principles within them.

I think clearly the United States, as well as other western nations, should stand by their commitments to human rights and democracy and should try to influence other countries to move in that direction.

American presence is, you know, the major cause of balance of power and the stability in this region.

American troops around the globe are the greatest preservers of liberty and peace in the world.

We must use all the tools of American power in resolving disputes, including diplomacy. And we must have sufficient congressional debate and oversight before ever putting another U.S. solider in harm's way.

American power in the world relies on these ideals of openness and critical debate.

I think it is very important for any U.S. administration to be clear that America stands on the side of freedom and democracy and respect for individual rights.

It's clear that the United States has more to give the world than military bases.

A lack of moral clarity is also the tragedy that has befallen efforts to advance peace and security in the world. Promoting peace and security is fundamentally connected to promoting freedom and democracy.

Efforts to fight and win the Global War on Terror, while simultaneously promoting democracy throughout the world, also require an improved and creative campaign of public diplomacy …. We can use medicine as a currency for peace.

Those who say that America has to dominate the world, and that you either have to control everything or go home, don't understand the way power is projected.

Europe is perhaps the first example in history of a non-dominant world power.

America is different. It irks and domineers. But it does not conquer. It tries to call the shots and bend the rules, but it does not go to war for land and glory.

A good society is able to face schemes of world domination and foreign revolutions alike without fear.

The question of when you intervene is probably the toughest question of American foreign policy.

What we need now is not just a regime change in Saddam Hussein and Iraq, but we need a regime change in the United States.