Boutros Boutros-Ghali Quotes

Foreign policy is all about a universe of bad decisions, imperfect decisions; every situation is different. The dynamics, the atmospherics, the people, the pressures, the geopolitical realities shift.

For foreign policy it is necessary to have men who inspire confidence.

Mr. Obama's approach to engagement to some degree makes him dependent on people who wish neither him nor America well. This doesn't have to end badly and I hope that it doesn't - but it's not an ideal position after one's first year in power.

I met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel, visited our allies in the Arab Gulf, traveled to Tunisia and Iraq, met with President Petro Poroshenko in Ukraine, and visited our allies in Germany, France, and the United Kingdom.

I'm not ready to be that guy who can meet with world leaders and all that. It's tremendous what Bono does. I don't know if I could do it, not the way he does. I don't think many people could.

Right now we're in the middle of a cultural war between the Muslims and the Western world. The politicians get in the way, but if you put two people together in a room, they can talk it out and work it out, just like Anna and the King.

President Bush spent last night calling world leaders to support the war with Iraq and it is sad when the most powerful man on earth is yelling, 'I know you're there, pick up, pick up.

Obama is thoroughly mixed up with all these things he's got. He's got to solve Libya. He's got to solve Afghanistan. He's everywhere. And this nation, I don't know why it's not showing the leadership and capacity to attend different issues at the same time.

One thing that we should have learned from history is to pay attention to the words of foreign leaders.

The Japanese sit up all night thinking of ways to screw the Americans and the Europeans.

The management of a balance of power is a permanent undertaking, not an exertion that has a foreseeable end.

All over the world, the Trump administration is pursuing a range of policies: tweeting insults at Maduro, negotiating with a defiant North Korea, sending a small fleet of warships to the Persian Gulf to intimidate Iran. But the speed with which the president always sours on these efforts means they can never be part of any discernible strategy.

The Chinese are really good at diplomacy - and even at making their interlocutors feel very uncomfortable.

I wanted to be a man who travelled the world to make peace. I didn't realise that most diplomats are megaphones for their governments.

It's too bad we can't take VA leadership and export it and give it to some of our adversaries around the planet. Let them suffer under VA's leadership.

A president who aspires to be recognized as a global leader should not personally stake out a foreign-policy goal, commit himself eloquently to its attainment, and then yield the ground when confronted by firm opposition.

Foreign policy is painstakingly difficult, and if there is to be anything gained from the experience in Libya, it is how not to conduct world affairs.

Iraq now says that it will, after all, destroy its missiles. President Bush said, 'Please, I used to pull the same trick. There'd be an intervention, I'd make a big show of pouring out the liquor and then there was a case under the floorboards.'

There are legitimate, even powerful arguments, to be made against the Bush administration's foreign policy. But those arguments are complicated, hard to explain, and, in the end, not all that sensational.

Nevertheless, China was unfortunately unable to understand Japan's real position, and it is greatly to be regretted that the Sino-Japanese War became one of long duration.

There are a lot of things that have to be considered in National. The military aspect of it is only one of them. I'm confident that President Bush will have all of those things laid out for him before he makes the decision.

I don't claim to know Israel. I don't speak Hebrew; my contacts are pretty limited. But I didn't know Vietnam; I didn't know Nicaragua, El Salvador or Honduras. It doesn't mean you can't reach your conclusions.

We don't want a president who fails at domestic and foreign policy.

Of course the UN brings in a lot of moral authority.

The most important thing that certainly the United States and other Asian and Pacific actors have done is to urge that whatever happens, however the dispute is resolved, that it be resolved peacefully.