Zbigniew Brzezinski Quotes

Everyone should unconditionally accept that Israel is an indispensable element of the Middle Eastern mosaic.

As long as Iran's aggressive policies continue, it's going to be bad for the region. Iran has to decide whether it wants a revolution or a nation-state.

A nation is a thing that lives and acts like a man and men are the particles of which it is composed.

It is still worth talking to Iran to see if there is a way through and to prevent the huge rivalry between Saudi and Iran turning into another version of the Iran-Iraq war. That is what all countries that have influence have to be thinking about.

I don't want anything to affect my freedom, and we don't want Saudi Arabia to be another Iran.

Without sovereignty, a nation cannot exist. Without borders, it can't be defined or protected.

There isn't a doubt that Iran constitutes the single most important single-country strategic challenge to the United States and to the kind of Middle East that we want to see.

The international community should pressure Iran to get the Houthis to agree to some peaceful understanding in Yemen. But at the same time, Saudi Arabia also needs to believe truly in democracy for Yemen.

Israel is the only democratic country in the Middle East.

To us, mastering the atomic fuel cycle and generating nuclear power is as much about diversifying our energy resources as it is about who Iranians are as a nation, our demand for dignity and respect, and our consequent place in the world.

Clearly, the Iranians are well aware that Teheran would be turned into a field of glass and sand if they ever stepped toward open war with Israel or Saudi Arabia.

The nation state law has nothing controversial.

At the end of the day, Israel is its own self-determining government.

If Israel did not exist, the United Nations would go out of business.

Saudi Arabia is a crucial ally in the Middle East, supporting U.S. efforts to fight terrorism and halt the ambitions of a hostile and increasingly aggressive Iran.

For us, sovereignty of Syria is very important.

The United Kingdom is not, and never has been, a nation state.

I want the world to understand that a Palestinian state means no Israeli state. That's the equation.

You have expressive nationalism, I mean very identity driven, which shaped each other a lot of that in the Middle East.

I do not know if the doctrine that the nation-state arose in the 19th century was still being taught:;... but it is erroneous. The nation-state reaches back far into the origins of Europe itself and perhaps beyond. If Europe was not always a Europe of nations, it was always a Europe in which nations existed, and were taken for granted, as a basic form of the State.

Russia ought to get Iran to back out of the proxy wars they are involved in.

The Saudis and Emiratis blame all of this on Iran. I think they’d have to grant, that as has been said, that the Houthis are an internally generated movement in Yemen and the Saudis were supposed to be dealing with the Houthis, who started out in essence along their border. So one of the things that we’re seeing is a complete failure of Saudi policy toward Yemen over the past 10 years, but the Saudis totally believe that the reason the Houthis are able to succeed militarily is the amount of money, advice, and guns they are receiving from Iran.

Here's something that I believe we have to do as we put together an international coalition, and that is we have to understand that the Muslim nations in the region - Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey, Jordan - all of these nations, they're going to have to get their hands dirty, their boots on the ground. They are going to have to take on ISIS.

We are engaging in the diplomatic efforts that are required within Iraq among the Shia, the Sunni and the Kurd, among friends, like Egypt, and Turkey and Saudi Arabia, but also enemies like Iran and Syria. They have to have buy-in into that process.

Iran is an island of stability in a turbulent corner of the world