Samuel P. Huntington Quotes

I think we have to pay attention to the Arab masses not just in the Gulf States, but also in the hinterlands.

The issue with Syria, I think for many of us, has always been about Iran. This is an anchor point for them in terms of regional domination. It means a lot to them. They are all in here.

There are lots of conflicts going on in the Middle East. It is unclear as to which country will emerge, if any, as the dominant or hegemonic power in the Middle East.

Syria is geographically and politically in the middle of the Middle East.

Egypt is the oldest, largest and most important Arab country in the region. What happens there affects them all.

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?

If U.S. mistakes in the Middle East helped Putin raise Russia's global profile, China's missteps and hubris in East and Southeast Asia, once called Indo-China, have opened up new spaces for India's profile to be raised.

Iran is taking over Iraq.

What you have in Iraq is not just a society coming apart like Yugoslavia or Congo. What is at stake is not just Iraq's stability but the balance of power in the region.

Iran is a great problem, but not necessarily a great country. In fact, I think it is a very weak country.

Turkey in general became too involved with what is happening in Egypt and in Syria. Some politicians with neo-Ottoman dreams developed this idea of being a major player in the Middle East, which hasn't gone as expected.

Taking stock of 'Operation Iraqi Freedom' a decade later, the Financial Times concluded that the US won the war, Iran won the peace, and Turkey won the contracts. I can only agree.

Syria is Iran's only ally in the Arab world. It's their route to the sea.

Good relations with Egypt are extremely important to us. Egypt is our neighbor and the largest Arab country. The people in all Muslim countries are on our side.

For Turkey, they think that if the Muslim Brotherhood take over the rest of the region, they will be very comfortable, they will be very happy, they will make sure that their political future is guaranteed.

The victor of the war in Iraq is Iran.

It was an agreement between Saddam (Hussein) and the shah of Iran and not between Iraq and Iran.

When you have difficult issues on the table for discussion, then sometimes for Africa you may have Burundi or Gambia representing them on the Security Council; and then for Latin America you may have a country like Costa Rica, which is a wonderful country but they don't have the same weight as others from the other regions. And sometimes they get bullied. Sometimes their capitals come under lots of pressure to take a position.

I believe Saddam Hussein's strategic objective was, and remains, to assert dominance over the Gulf region.

Russia is not going to give up easily on Syria. They've had a relationship with that country since 1955. It's very close to them.

Russia can never be an empire unless it is in control of Ukraine.

Any country that has Milton Friedman as an adviser has nothing to fear from a few million Arabs.

Syria is no longer Syria. Syria is Russia and it's Iran, who Hillary Clinton made strong and Kerry and Obama made into a very powerful nation and a very rich nation, very, very quickly, very, very quickly.

I mean, you can agree or disagree with Iraq or Afghanistan, but by the way, now the great campaigning cause out there is the absence of intervention in Syria. And then in Libya, it's partial intervention. And that doesn't really explain why some countries that have literally nothing to do with the interventions in the Middle East end up getting targeted.

The Jews have a powerful ally, America, but they do not really have a bigger family in the same way that there is a European family or an Arab-Muslim family. People who fail to understand this ambivalence will never understand this country. They will not be able to understand how Netanyahu could win the last election by saying the Iranians are coming, Islamic State (IS) is coming, the Arabs are coming, and the whole world hates us anyway.