Lawrence Korb Quotes

Forty million Arabs are going to push four hundred thousand Jews into the sea. And that's all there is to it. Oil—that is the side we ought to be on.

Washington sees the various local and national conflicts in the Middle East as part of a battle for regional hegemony between the U.S. and Iran.

I don't think for a minute we went to Iraq for oil. It just so happened that it had oil. But I think we'll come out of the Iraqi situation with a call on their oil at market price.

Today, the origin of 90% of all the edible food Gambians consume are from places they have never heard of.

I explained that we would like to adjust our position on the Syrian question to theirs, as, in our view, they are the decisive factor in our relations with our neighbors, and Syria is unimportant.

I will tell you that the special relationship that America has with the Israeli people transcends any of the politics.

So much of our attention is trained on the Middle East these days, but we cannot ignore East Asia.

America is interested in re-arranging the region as it sees fit.

What Ottawa and Washington used to think about Turkey or Iran was not very important because we really didn't think much about either, but now what we think about them is extremely important - to ourselves and to many other peoples.

I also argued before the war that the administration was underestimating Arab nationalism and Iraqi nationalism, that it was not going to be as easy to rule Iraq as they thought.

There is nothing in common between the United States and Saudi Arabia except Israel.

In this era of tightening world food supplies, the ability to grow food is fast becoming a new form of geopolitical leverage, and countries are scrambling to secure their own parochial interests at the expense of the common good.

With China’s 1.4 billion increasingly affluent consumers starting to compete with U. S. consumers for the U. S. grain harvest, cheap food seen by many as an American birthright, may be coming to an end.

I want for us to be self-sustained so we can export. The government has a responsibility to have agricultural programs so people are able to grow their own food.

There is no intrinsic reason African countries should be importing, rather than exporting, basic staples like rice or higher value products like frozen chicken, cooking oil, or instant noodles.

If Bush had gone into Iraq for cynical reasons, we could cut our losses now. What's frightening is that he did it for ideological reasons, and therefore he's not going to get out. So it isn't ultimately about oil or about Israel, it's about a belief.

Whatever the history of U.S. intervention in Iraq, our priorities now should be to protect our people and defend our national security interests, not to try to resolve an intractable religious divide some 1,500 years in the making.

No peace will arrive unless the U.S. or Pakistan want it.

Americans have eliminated Iran's worst enemies, the Taliban in Afghanistan and Saddam [Hussein]. I occasionally threatened my Iranian counterpart in Kabul that one day I would send him a big bill for what we did. But, seriously, Iran is pursuing a dual strategy in Iraq. On the one hand, the Iranians, after decades of hostility, are now interested in good relations. On the other hand, they want to keep the country weak and dominate the region.

As a matter of fact, it's in our interests that we help reformers across the Middle East achieve their objectives. This is the fundamental challenge of the 21st century.

Russia and Iran are not going to allow the Assad regime to fall.

Iran should not be denied the human right to knowledge...the fear of America is Iran's attitude to Israel, and the cornerstone of America's foreign policy is the protection of Israel... If Iran believes in Allah, and if Iran believes in the power of Allah, Iran can't be frightened by America.

Israeli government & the neocons want US to bomb Iran.

It's a tragedy what is happening, what Bush is doing. All Bush wants is Iraqi oil. There is no doubt that the U.S. is behaving badly. Why are they not seeking to confiscate weapons of mass destruction from their ally Israel? This is just an excuse to get Iraq's oil.

There won't be some overnight miracle cure. But the measures I take will be sustainable. Our goal is to cease food imports within four years. This will create a minimum of 2 million jobs in agriculture.