Tony Blair Quotes

We are caught in the Middle East in supporting the bad guys in order to get rid of the worse guys.

There is very little hope that the United States or anyone else can do much to stabilize Iraq, Libya, Syria or Egypt. Stabilizing Iran, and bringing it back into the family of nations, is much more possible. That would be a 'win' for both sides.

The conflict in the Middle East is complex, multi-faceted, and unlikely to be resolved anytime soon.

Russia isn't likely to have any more military success in Syria and Iraq than has the United States.

Syria is still the foundation of the axis of evil, and I'm not sure it's appropriate to transfer Israel's northern front to the axis of evil.

And the problem is, I can apologise for the information that turned out to be wrong, but I can't, sincerely at least, apologise for removing Saddam.

I had said from the start that I thought Iraq was a mistake, that we should have stayed focused on Afghanistan. I think it was the right decision because the Taliban at that point had gotten a lot of momentum before I'd gotten into office, partly because we hadn't been paying attention as much as we needed to to Afghanistan.

Iraq is not about oil.

I hope I'm wrong, but I am afraid that Iraq is going to turn out to be the greatest disaster in American foreign policy - worse than Vietnam, not in the number who died, but in terms of its unintended consequences and its reverberation throughout the region.

I don't think that anyone seriously fears that the world can be blown to pieces all together. But what one can fear and rightly so are regional things, like in the Middle East, India, Pakistan, the Korean Peninsula, borders in Africa, etc.

Going to war against Iran - whether one calls such a move 'surgical' or 'total' - would be an extremely serious undertaking; with worldwide economic, military, diplomatic and human ramifications in both the short- and the long-term.

There is no question that Iraq is one of the main problems. You'd have to be blind not to see what a magnet and generating force it's become for terrorist groups.

There is no reason that Iraq should be at war with Israel.

Unless we get serious about addressing Iran's regional ambitions in places like Syria, then our allies are never going to be confident that we have a strategy for the region.

The president has largely taken a hands-off approach in Syria and granted it as a legitimate sphere of interest to countries like Iran and like Russia. This is very bad policy, and it's going to lead to very dangerous consequences for our partners in the region, which is why so many of them are so opposed to U.S. policies.

As president, Governor Romney would handle the Syrian conflict much differently. A President Romney would not ignore a growing conflict in a dangerous region involving allies the way Obama has, especially when chemical weapons could possibly be used.

The 2003 war in Iraq may be considered the greatest error in American policy since the Civil War. Its ramifications are earth-shattering and will impact us and our safety for generations. It may completely unravel the entire Middle East forever.

The West's involvement in the Middle East has been a disaster from the start... and finally, with President Trump, America is in a position to bring it to an end.

America went into Iraq. We shouldn't have gone into Iraq. We shouldn't have gotten out the way we got out. The world is a total mess.

Every chance at destabilizing [Bashar] Assad... the bombing campaign causes a flood of refugees into Jordan, there's already half a million in Jordan. I think a bombing campaign - I think it's hard to argue that a U.S. bombing campaign is going to cause less refugees. And I think it causes more refugees and more of a humanitarian disaster. I think it causes, or allows, the risk of Israel being attacked with a gas attack to go up, if we attack Assad. So there's all kinds of bad things.

I think we have to knock out ISIS. Right now Syria is fighting ISIS. We have people who want to fight both at the same time. But Syria is no longer Syria; Syria is Russia and Iran, who she made strong, and Kerry and Obama made into a very powerful nation and very rich nation very, very quickly. Very, very quickly. I believe we have to get ISIS.

The U.S. should never get involved where we have no clear national interest. We should not intervene militarily in a country like Syria, where we can’t separate friend from foe and might end up arming the very people who hate us the most.

If Russia is there [in Syria] alone fighting them [ISIL], guess what? Russia becomes the target and Russia starts seeing - who knows - MANPADs will find their way in there, airplanes will fall out of the sky. They will become vilified. They'll become the new magnet, together with Assad, for the jihadis.

Iraq will drive American agenda for a long time because Iraq policy has so damaged America in the Middle East region, left us isolated. We are there now by brute strength, we are not there because we are desired.

I can't take anything off the table. Because you look at some of these countries, you look at North Korea, we're doing nothing there. China should solve that problem for us. China should go into North Korea. China is totally powerful as it relates to North Korea.