Michael Mandelbaum Quotes

American oil operations are, for all practical purposes, instruments of our foreign policy.

Already, China has undermined U.S. foreign policy in efforts to gain access to oil resources in Iran and Sudan. We simply cannot separate the political and economic values of oil.

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.

Saudi Arabia supplies much oil to the U.S. And it is the world's largest consumer of American weaponry.

Vladimir Putin uses energy to hold our allies hostage. If energy is going to be used as a weapon, I say America must have the largest arsenal.

The good Lord didn't see fit to put oil and gas only where there are democratically elected regimes friendly to the United States. Occasionally we have to operate in places where, all considered, one would not normally choose to go. But we go where the business is.

Look, I don't think President Obama would have bowed to the ruler of Saudi Arabia if he didn't have oil to the degree that the Saudis do. I think they and other producing states, almost all of whom, except Norway and Canada, are dictatorships or autocratic systems, have thrown their weight around because of oil.

Show this administration an oil well, and it will show you a foreign policy.

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

There is an alliance between Israel and the United States, and it has never been stronger than at the time of George W. Bush.

The U.S.-Israel alliance is a core part of our strategic position in the Middle East.

The U.S. has strategic and economic interests in Southeast Asia that must be secured. Holding Indochina is essential to securing these interests. Therefore, we must hold Indochina.

We're supposed to believe that oil had nothing to do with it, that if Iraq were exporting pickles or jelly and the center of world oil production were in the South Pacific that the United States would've liberated them anyway. It has nothing to do with the oil, what a crass idea. Anyone with their head screwed on knows that that can't be true.

Whenever we defend democracy we find oil.

You can't have anything happening today within the petro-monarchies, is going to be too risky for the United States and the oil interests there.

I believe that Israel is one of our most important friends in the world.

The Iranians know they hold high cards because of oil.

I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil …. Whatever their publicized angst over Saddam Hussein's 'weapons of mass destruction,' American and British authorities were also concerned about violence in an area that harbors a resource indispensable for the functioning of the world economy

Doesn't it seem awfully strange that the Iraqi government we support is an ally of the Iranians who are our declared enemies? Are we not now supporting the Iranians by propping up their allies in Iraq?

Nothing has really taken me aback more as Secretary of State than the way that the politics of energy is –… warping diplomacy around the world…we have simply got to do something about the warping now of diplomatic effort by the all-out rush for energy supply

America needs Pakistan more than Pakistan needs America…. Pakistan is the pivot of the world, the frontier upon which the future of the world revolves

Israel is absolutely critical to American national security.

Nothing guides Russian policy so much as a desire for friendship with the United States.

We will never again permit any foreign nation to have Uncle Sam over a barrel of oil.

Our inaction created the opportunity for the Russians to reenter the Middle East in a powerful way for the first time since 1973.