Lakhdar Brahimi Quotes

Egypt is going to be, potentially, a failed state if we don't help them.

A Pakistan that falls apart, becomes a failed state, would be of extraordinary danger to Afghanistan and to America.

We see an extensive program of dismantling state institutions... These are ingredients for catastrophe.

There were three causes that accounted for the proclamation of martial law in Poland. First it was the progressing economic ruin of the country. Second, it was the decomposition of the functioning of the state. And third, a threat of a civil war.

I don't want to be overly dramatic, but Iraq and Syria are gone, and they aren't coming back, at least not as centralized states.

As brutal as Saddam Hussein was, it was a mistake to just eliminate him. The same is true for Moammar Gadhafi and for Libya, which is now a failed state.

The United States has entered the ranks of the failed states. One of the most remarkable manifestations of a failed state is that the criminals are all inside the government operating against the people, whereas in a normal state, the criminals are on the outside of the government, operating against it. So, we now have every manifestation of being a failed state, with the government in the hands of a few Wall Street gangsters.

Iraq is falling apart.

By 2007, Iraqi society had completely collapsed.

You go to conferences, and your fellow African intellectuals - and even heads of state - they all say: 'Nigeria is a big disappointment. It is the shame of the African continent.'

In Kenya, crime and terrorism are deeply linked, not least by the failure of successive Kenyan governments to control either.

Egypt under Hosni Mubarak had deteriorated to the status of a failed state. We must wipe the slate clean and start again.

The chief threats to security come from failed states.

The system of government in Pakistan doesn't work. It's corrupt, and the people are tired of it.

The crowd that is running Washington today has had 12 years and it failed

In 54 years of its existence, Pakistan has not been able to find a workable model of democracy

We saw Vietnam disintegrating before our eyes—at least the structure of the state disintegrating.

… the independent Afghan government that followed the ouster of the Taliban descended into catastrophic corruption, incompetence, and double-dealing, and many Afghans blamed American intervention for the mess in their country.

Libya stood as a source of stability in volatile northern Africa in 2011. The administration turned it into a failed state that exposed southern Europe to refugees and terrorist elements, all of which Gadhafi had warned about.

Russia has nothing: no successful politics or economy.

I do worry about civil unrest, or complete collapse of society, or having to flee, or Europe falling into a war.

The State of Alabama let me down tremendously.

There is an anatomical dysfunction in today's Lebanon, and we have been stuck in a socio-political vicious circle for decades.

Yet, here we are, long and difficult years into that conflict," ... "we still have not created the state we promised them. On the contrary, our costly and valiant efforts have produced an outcome our government did not predict or intend-a failed state spinning out of control into anarchy and civil war.

It is bad governments, not bad people, who cause revolutions.