John Bolton Quotes

[Dan Fried] served six presidents over a 40-year career dating back to the [Jimmy] Carter administration.

These are career non-partisan apolitical staffers with a combined 150 years of experience at the State Department gone, just like that right off the top [right after Secretary Rex Tillerson was sworn in].

There's too little sense in the State Department of why things happened.

I fully, fully concede that Secretary Hillary Clinton, who was secretary of State for four years, has more experience - hat is not arguable - in foreign affairs.

Things change. There has to be flexibility. Let me give you an example. President Xi, we have a, like, a really great relationship. For me to call him a currency manipulator and then say, “By the way, I'd like you to solve the North Korean problem,” doesn't work. So you have to have a certain flexibility, Number One. Number Two, from the time I took office till now, you know, it's a very exact thing. It's not like generalities.

The diplomacy of the present administration has sought to respond to the modern idea of commercial intercourse. This policy has been characterized as substituting dollars for bullets.

[Ronald] Reagan talked to people across the world and he was very successful in communicating and treating people with dignity and respect, but putting America first in every single we do.

Our nations are so close yet such a visit took 17 years. This will change & we will strengthen India-Nepal ties.

What Donald Trump is determined to do, as someone who has spent a lifetime looking for deals, is to see if we can have a new relationship with Russia and other countries that advances the interests of America first and the peace and security of the world.

No modern nation has ever constructed a foreign policy that was acceptable to its intellectuals

It is 60 years since the restoration of diplomatic relations, but relations between Japan and Russia have much deeper roots. In all, our diplomatic ties date back 150 years, more than 150 years now.

After [Dan Fried] was initially hired into the Foreign Service in 1977, five subsequent presidents of both parties thought it would be a good idea to keep him on. That his deep understanding, his knowledge of all the players and so many of the secrets it would make him an indispensable asset, particularly when it comes to dealing with Russia.

My Worst Political Move of the 2015 Year. John Boehner inviting Benjamin Netanyahu to address the joint session of Congress.

You know, Hillary Clinton's out there saying, we need smart diplomacy. We need to do smart power. And that means empathizing with our enemy, understanding their grievances, like we understand the grievances of homosexuals, like we understand the grievances of African-Americans. We must learn to understand the grievances of ISIS.

The truth is France has been the chief Western advocate of normalizing relations with Iraq - one of its largest trading partners - for years, partly because France holds billions in IOUs from Iraq that wouldn't be redeemable by a new regime.

I think that Hillary Clinton has an appreciation that American power needs to be put in the service of American values, which is an American tradition and a pretty good one, and I think she was willing to do that.

Right after Secretary [Rex] Tillerson was sworn in, four of the top career diplomats at the department were told their services were no longer needed.

Trump has got to define what he seeks to achieve with Russia, and then use diplomacy and sometimes coercion to achieve those ends. Right now, aside from this fight with ISIS, which I would underscore, you know, the Obama administration has been trying to fight ISIS with Russia for several years now.

The [Donald] Trump folks chose not to keep [Dan Fried] on. He was actually - I said he was actually the third-most senior diplomat in the foreign service.

Richard Nixon even before becoming president, before meeting Henry Kissinger, he said, "This is ridiculous. Communism is nationalist. The Chinese and Russian and Yugoslav and Cuban and - none of these communists get along, and the Koreans and the Vietnamese, and we can do business with them." And then he opened up to China, and that's when the Cold War started.

Earlier this month the State Department gave the umpteenth performance of its popular play, Please Tread on Me, with Ceylon as guest star, and the usual cast.

I worked with [Hillary Clinton] for four years very closely when she was secretary of state and I was at the CIA. I provided her - personally provided her some of the most sensitive information that the Central Intelligence Agency has.

I had carefully read the Balfour Declaration. I had familiarized myself with the history of the question of a Jewish homeland and the position of the British and the Arabs. I was skeptical, as I read over the whole record up to date, about some of the views and attitudes assumed by the 'striped-pants boys' in the State Department.

We have seen very clearly over these past years that there are quite a few people who are sceptical, or let us put it another way, are cautious about the development of Russian-American relations, but the underlying fundamental interests of the United States and Russia demand that our relations be normalised.

There's an old proverb that says the Russian bear never dies, it just hibernates and the truth of the matter is the weak and feckless policy of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama has awakened an aggression in Russia that first appeared few years ago with their move in Georgia, now their move into Crimea, now their move into the wider Middle East and all the while, all we do is fold our arms and say we're not having talks anymore.