David Petraeus Quotes

I just think everything we do has an unintended consequence. We take out Saddam Hussein in Iraq, and Iraq was the check against Iran.

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

Terrorists are trained in Syria, and weapons come from Iran and Syria, and I believe that's something that should be stopped.

Whether it is Iraq, whether it is Yemen, whether it is Lebanon, whether it is Syria, I mean North Africa, you could go through the list of countries where Iran as the largest state sponsor of terrorism uses these proxies... to foment chaos in the Middle East.

Our relations with Iran have witnessed grave crises because of the policies of successive regimes in Iran which have considered Iraq and the Arab homeland, particularly the Arab Gulf area, as a sphere for domination and influence.

Iraq may have been a preview of that, but it's still redeemable if we get out fast. In a war with Iran, we'll get dragged down for 20 or 30 years. The world will condemn us. We will lose our position in the world.

By God, we will make the fire eat up half of Isreal if it tries to do anything against Iraq.

Look, Iraq and Iran would fight for years and years and years, it went on forever. They were almost identical strengths, and the line would never move, right? Then they would go home and rest for ten years and then they would start fighting and they'd rest, that was it. We knocked out one of those two pegs, and so now Iran is taking over.

Iran is undertaking a massive effort to expand its influence in southern Iraq. At the same time, that influence decreases the more the political process in Iraq progresses.

The disastrous invasion of Iraq, something that I strongly opposed, has unraveled the region.

When America does not lead, the world is a dangerous and a tragic place. This is a bad deal. [Barack] Obama broke every rule of negotiation.Yes, our allies are not perfect, but Iran is at the heart of most of the evil that is going on in the Middle East through their proxy.

Iran is obviously part of the problem. They sponsor Hezbollah. They encourage a radical brand of Islam.

The war in Iraq is a serious situation. It's - it involves the worst foreign policy mistake in the history of this country. So we should take everything serious. This is - we find ourselves in a very deep hole. We need to find a way to dig out of it.

Iran's arms exports to the murderous Assad regime in Syria are of particular concern. As the Panel of Experts has concluded, Syria is now the central party to illicit Iranian arms transfers.

War on Iraq runs the risk of turning the Middle East into an inexhaustible recruiting ground for anti- western terrorism.

Before there was the Soviet Union that could inflame matters. Now you have states not as powerful as the Soviet Union, but states like Iraq, like Iran, and to some extent Syria, having made it possible for some of these groups to operate. So it is a very difficult situation.

One has to be willing to face the fact that what has transpired in Iraq is not exactly a very successful exercise.

I don't think that the United States has the bulk of the responsibility. I really put that on Bashar Assad and on the Iraqis and on the region itself.

Today too, the most important issue in the world is Palestine. If a war breaks out in Iraq, we believe it is due to the provocation of the Zionists. If it happens in Afghanistan, it is because of their provocation. If Sudan is oppressed, it is due to Zionist seduction. We consider all the arrogant, colonialist schemes to be inspired by the Zionists.

The Middle East is now filled with death and destruction and that was the aim of Neo-Conservatives who planned this destruction of seven Muslim nations in five years and they are on schedule and the final nation in their sights to destroy is the Islamic Republic of Iran.

ISIS is a virulent, nasty organization that has gained a foothold in ungoverned spaces effectively in Syria and parts of western Iraq. We have to take it seriously. They've shown in Paris what they can do in an organized fashion.

If you really look at the aftermath of Iraq, Iran is going to be taking over Iraq. They've been doing it. And it's not a pretty picture.

If we had allowed things to drift, everything would have gone from bad to worse. Nasser would have become a kind of Moslem Mussolini, and our friends in Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and even Iran would gradually have been brought down. His efforts would have spread westwards, and Libya and North Africa would have been brought under his control.

U.S. military action in Iraq: It sure didn't work out well last time. Let's not make that mistake again.

We support any deal that denies Iran nuclear weapons, that has a continuous and robust inspection mechanism and that has snap-back provisions in case Iran violates the agreement. Our concern is that Iran will use the income it receives as a result of the lifting of the nuclear sanctions in order to fund its nefarious activities in the region.