Madeleine Albright Quotes

Foreign interventions always end badly.

Of course as a small country you're not necessarily in the strongest negotiating position unless you're negotiating with other small countries.

The Russians are liars – you can't trust them. At Potsdam they agreed to everything and broke their word. It's too bad the second world power is like this, but that's the way it is, and we must keep our strength.

I don't have any problem with the United States acting on behalf of its own interests. That's what big powers do; that's what all countries do. I would just like to see us analyze in a serious way what really is in our interest. Sometimes we intervene in foreign countries in ways that seem successful at first. In the end, however, we wind up with unpredicted consequences that make us regret those operations.

The point is that in any country, including the United States, may be in the United States even more often than in any other country, foreign policy is used for internal political struggle.

Imagine if the United States, in its war against Hitler, had said to Stalin: we don't want your support until you make your country democratic.

If a great country yields to a small country, it will conquer the small country. If a small country yields to a great country, it will be conquered by the great country.

The lessons are, unfortunately, that a small weak country that is facing an extremely hostile and very violent superpower will not make much progress unless there's a strong solidarity movement within the superpower that will restrain its actions. With more support within the United States, I think the Haitian efforts could have succeeded.

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.

Israel should have exploited the repression of the demonstrations in China, when world attention focused on that country, to carry out mass expulsions among the Arabs of the territories.

Here's the truth: the Soviet Union had thousands of nuclear weapons, and Iran doesn't have a single one. But when the world was on the brink of nuclear holocaust, Kennedy talked to Khrushchev and he got those missiles out of Cuba. Why shouldn't we have the same courage and the confidence to talk to our enemies? That's what strong countries do, that's what strong presidents do, that's what I'll do when I'm president of the United States of America.

Since leaving office in 1977, Dr. Kissinger has continued to play a highly influential role in U.S. politics, in the U.S. media, and in the Rockefeller world empire. It was Kissinger, along with David Rockefeller, who was decisive in the disastrous decision of President Carter to admit the recently toppled Shah of Iran, old friend and ally of the Rockefellers into the United States, a decision that led directly to the Iranian hostage crisis and to Carter's downfall.

There are reports that Russia is actually working with North Korea to encourage “collaboration and cooperation” between the two countries. Yeah, they believe that with Russia's economic power and North Korea's technology, they can be a real threat to 1987.

It's not appealing to deal with countries that express hatred towards us.

[Barack] Obama can draw lines for himself and his country, not for other countries. We have our red lines, like our sovereignty, our independence, while if you want to talk about world red lines, the United States used depleted uranium in Iraq, Israel used white phosphorus in Gaza, and nobody said anything. What about the red lines ? We don't see red lines. It's political red lines.

If anything good is going to emerge out of this, it's going to be the result of an acceptable modus vivendi between Ukraine and Russia. The two of them will have to get together at some point. It is going to be a result that many people in the West will not like, because Russia, as the bigger power, is going to get the better of the deal. So, a lot of people will say, that's appeasement. That's this - that - it's reality.

People in the big rich countries are often extremely dismissive of the small countries. They think nothing that happens there is of any interest or that it matters at all, but, at the very least, with that attitude they miss out on some extraordinary stories.

Quite generally, international affairs have more than a slight resemblance to the Mafia. The Godfather does not take it lightly when he is crossed, even by a small storekeeper.

George W. Bush tried working with the Russians after 9/11; Obama had the reset. Both presidents achieved less than they wanted, but they both achieved something. Those policies made sense, and it's to the credit of both Presidents Bush and Obama that even as they reached out to Russia, they did not sacrifice core American interests, or core American values. We didn't give the Russians on the altar of better relations other countries. We were able to do two things at once.

From the weak nations' point of view, it is better if there are many powerful countries then if there are just a few. The more concentrated is power, the fewer opportunities there are to move. Space for change, space for freedom to implement change is then very narrow; very small.

Russia is a country that has supported, propped up the worst of anti-democratic regimes in the Middle East, that has practiced - mistreated its own press, mistreated its own civil society, and economic intimidation of its neighbors, including invasion of its neighbors.I mean, this is the one country on the face of the earth with the capacity to obliterate the United States.

Though the object of being a Great Power is to be able to fight a Great War, the only way of remaining a Great Power is not to fight one.

Strong countries and strong presidents talk to their adversaries. That's what Kennedy did with Khrushchev. That's what Reagan did with Gorbachev. That's what Nixon did with Mao. I mean think about it. Iran, Cuba, Venezuela - these countries are tiny compared to the Soviet Union. They don't pose a serious threat to us the way the Soviet Union posed a threat to us. And yet we were willing to talk to the Soviet Union at the time when they were saying we're going to wipe you off the planet.

Donald Trump didn't even understand, right, that [Vladimir] Putin was playing him. So, in Putin's mind, I have no doubt that Putin thinks that he's an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation, although Putin would never say that.

To honor the people that died, we need to stop the Iran agreement, for sure, because the Iranian mullahs have their blood on their hands, and we need to take out ISIS with every tool at our disposal.