Richard Grenell Quotes

The fall of the Syrian regime is in the interest of America and Israel.

I hope the example of Saddam Hussein will give a lesson to leaders of other countries where human rights are not respected.

The transition from tyranny to democracy is very hard. The Syrian people have to handle this in a way that works in Syria. And the brutality of the Assad regime is unacceptable.

Pinochet took power in a 1973 military coup that the United States supported.

Obama was late to affirm the Egyptian revolution as a democratic movement, and even then he was eager to have installed those military leaders who were known for their practices of torture.

I think, as a general matter, clearly, the United States globally supports the development of democracy and the democratic yearnings of all people.

But it is important to observe that when Europe or the United Nations impose sanctions that are supposed to be aimed against a certain regime, usually generally millions of people end up being directly punished.

Governments that use violence to stop democratic development will not earn themselves respite forever. They will pay an increasingly high price for actions which they can no longer hide from the world with ease, and will find themselves on the wrong side of history.

Washington probably would not like the governments that Arab democracy would produce.

…allies such as Bahrain are liable to use their American made weapons against their own people.

In February 2004, the two traditional torturers of Haiti - France and the United States - combined to back a military coup and send President Aristide off to Africa. The U.S. denies him permission to return to the entire region.

The regime of Bashar al-Assad will inevitably go down. And its collapse will be loud not only in Syria but across the Arab world.

The Syrian rebels, weakened by infighting, have also been victims of the growing rift between the U.S. and its closest Arab allies.

For all its pro-democracy rhetoric, the West rolled over to military coups in Egypt and Thailand.

One sure way to ruin American credibility in the Arab world is to sit silently in Damascus and look like you're part of the Assad show.

Though there are some debatable exceptions, sanctions rarely play a significant role in dislodging or constraining the behavior of despicable regimes.

Liberals could not be less interested in democracy when it came to taking out Saddam Hussein... Now a loyal American ally [Mubarak] comes under attack and they are burning for democracy.

Most Arabs and Muslims feel that the United States hasn't really been paying much attention to their desires. They think it has been pursuing its policies for its own sake and not according to many of the principles that it claims are its own - democracy, self-determination, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, international law.

The need to remove Col. Qaddafi should be self-evident.

Unfortunately, history suggests that dictatorial regimes can withstand years, even decades, of economic sanctions.

Russians in top positions always told me, 'We don't want to deal with our allies the way that the Americans dealt with Mubarak,' which is a very live example in the minds of many.

Bush II's democracy crusade and Obama's embrace of the Arab Spring have unleashed and empowered forces less receptive to America's wishes and will than the despots and dictators deposed with our approval.

I was very much in favor of the Iraq invasion.

The Tunisian revolution left every Arab dictator in fear; Egypt's toppling of Mubarak left them terrified - even one of the U.S.' best allies in the region could fall.

For decades, Robert Mugabe has thumbed his nose at the world. The long-time dictator has ruled Zimbabwe with an iron fist, repeatedly insulted foreign dignitaries, ignored regional and international agreements to which he was a signatory, and isolated the country from any legitimate international economic or political engagement.