Lawrence Wright Quotes

America has wearied of Middle East War.

The West will have to choose: either to come to terms with Russians, or to receive a retaliatory blow. This retaliatory blow will not be by means of war. We will resort to the same weapon: nationalism.

It’s not America’s job to fix the Middle East. Our job is to look after our own interests..

America is a force for good in the Middle East.

If you study the behavior or the attitude of Syria, Iran, and U.S., you understand that these three countries can't come to terms with each other.

Everyone in the Middle East pretty much wants to come and be an American citizen, but pretty much everybody is angry with the U. S. foreign policy.

As I watch what is happening in the Middle East and the carnage that comes over our television screens every evening, I cannot help but ask myself, what is wrong with humankind that we cannot stop the killing?

My father was a Foreign Service officer, a diplomat and an Arabist who spent virtually all his career in the Near East, as it was called in the State Department. So I spent most of my childhood among the Israelis and the Arabs of Palestine, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

No border that touches Israel is always secure.

When I go there to Afghanistan or Pakistan, the question both asked - and if it's not asked, implied - is, 'Are you staying this time?' because we left last time, in 1989 in Afghanistan, and we sanctioned Pakistan from 1990 to 2002. So I think it's a fair question.

I'm not an expert on the Middle East or terrorism or the use of military force or politics. It's all I can do to know a little bit about how to help people raise their kids and what to do when they get sick. When a war happens, I just hope it gets over with quickly so that how we take care of children becomes more important again.

We need to be more careful, but more compassionate. We must strike, not deal with terrorists, but to broaden our understanding of the world outside our borders.

How is the world ruled and led to war? Diplomats lie to journalists and believe these lies when they see them in print.

You can't make war in the Middle East without Egypt and you can't make peace without Syria.

Unfortunately, the American policy towards Pakistan is just to worry and express concern, and that is not a clear policy at all.

Everyone is interested in war, in that people don't want it to happen. I'm much more interested in peace than in war but it's important to understand why we fight.

We have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts.

America's relations with complex Middle Eastern states such as Egypt are often difficult.

Public interest in most of the Middle East was slight at that time; the Arab-Israeli conflict was all that people were interested in and that was not my specialty.

I believe Johnson understood that the reason was Vietnam. I also believe that he felt that if there was a way to communicate the real issues in Vietnam, that the reasons would be answered or understood. But there was just no way to communicate.

Peace is much more precious than a piece of land.

Do not play with fire in Indonesia … let not the lack of understanding by America lead to a third world war.

This Middle East thing is maddening.

War is but an instrument of international policy.

The only things that matter in the world are Japan and China, Russia and Europe. Latin America doesn’t matter…. And … there’s nothing you can do about the Middle East.