Ahmed Chalabi Quotes

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.

We have Islamic rebels [in Syria] who've been eating the hearts or organs of their enemies. We have priests that have been killed. We have Christian villages that have been razed by Islamic rebels. We have Islamic rebels who say they don't recognize Israel and would just as soon attack Israel as [Bashar] Assad. So really, I see no clear-cut American interest, and I'm afraid that sometimes things unravel, and the situation could become less stable and not more stable.

We've just let too many things happen. And now, try to turn around and fix it. Getting involved in a [Syria] civil war directly was never something I thought made sense.

Islamic State is mainly a direct result of the failure in Syria. That's where IS has grown. That's where IS spread from.

Then when [ISIS] moved into Iraq, the Sunni Muslims didn’t object to their being there and about a third of the territory in Iraq was abandoned.

There is little doubt that an unstable Syria will destabilize the whole Middle East.

History may someday record that the Arab awakening that began with the Arab revolt of 1916 against the Ottomans ended about a century later with a whimper.

If Iraq were to descend into chaos, the Europeans would feel the effects just as much as we would.

If the United States were to cut and run from Iraq, we would send a message of weakness that would embolden our terrorist enemies across the globe. A failed Iraq would destabilize the entire region and undermine U.S. national security for decades to come.

A U.S. invasion of Iraq could turn the whole region into a cauldron, and thus destroy the war on terrorism. A military campaign very likely would have to be followed by a large-scale, long-term military occupation.

The Middle East that will emerge from the crucible of the Iraq war may not be more democratic, but it will definitely be more Shiite.

If you want to hear arguments against deploying a big U.S. ground force in Syria, just ask a general.

For too long Hezbollah has been able to conduct its illegal operations unhindered by the threat of a direct response from the United States.

As the crisis in Syria grows and the humanitarian tragedy becomes more clear, I appreciated Prime Minister Netanyahu's perspective on the changes and volatility in the region.

We have no vital national interest in Syria's civil war.

Beyond Iraq, I am also profoundly worried about the continuing meltdown of Syria, which is a geopolitical Chernobyl. Until it is capped, it is going to continue to spew radioactive instability and extremist ideology over the entire region.

The success of ISIS is largely tied to the safe haven it has in Syria.

The president has largely taken a hands-off approach in Syria and granted it as a legitimate sphere of interest to countries like Iran and like Russia. This is very bad policy, and it's going to lead to very dangerous consequences for our partners in the region, which is why so many of them are so opposed to U.S. policies.

What happened in Iraq and Syria was that the world remained silent as ISIS expanded.

I consider ISIS nothing more than an excuse for Iran to continue its mischief.

ISIS was able to grow because the Obama administration stuck its head in the sand rather than address the emerging problem.

The United States has been essentially engaged in an ongoing war that most people date from 2001. That war has taken us to Afghanistan, to Iraq, in a lesser way to other countries - Libya, Somalia, Yemen.

We can't say whether Tehran is supporting Al Qaeda, but we do know that al-Qaida people come here from Pakistan through Iran.

IS [Islamic State] has played a major role in helping Bashar al-Assad to reposition Syria on the international scene. Now, it is almost impossible to come up with a solution that would exclude him. The political game appears to be very cynical indeed.

Saying that the origin of the Islamic State (IS) is within the Muslim Brotherhood organisation only strengthens IS. This is what the Israeli government asserts when claiming that Hamas and IS are the exact same thing. By saying so, the historical resistance [against the Israeli occupation] is viewed as unlawful, called extremism and terrorism.