Elliott Abrams Quotes

The United States may have to abandon its policy of avoiding entangling alliances.

Even allies don’t share every single interest that you have. That’s a law of nature in the international system. They will tell you most of what you need to know but there may be some things that they don’t tell you that you need to know in order to formulate your policy as wisely as you can.

When I became secretary of state, I felt one of my primary jobs was building relationships around the world.

The United States has got to adopt a policy of befriending and creating allies around the world.

Turkey has worked alongside its allies from the beginning.

In critical ways, Obama has reversed not just Bush policy but every president's approach to the world since the Second World War, save for that of his soulmate Jimmy Carter.

Multilateralism may be little more than a polite way of camouflaging what is in practice unilateralism with allies.

You cannot have individual foreign policy. You cannot have celebrity foreign policy.

Don't think we've ever convinced the American people that it's not in our interest to be isolationists. Our tendency for the first century, maybe century-and-a-half of our existence was to be isolationists, to hide behind the two mighty oceans, to become self-sufficient, and to follow Washington's caution not to become involved in foreign entanglements and alliances.

Foreign policy can no longer be the province of just a few elites.

To his credit, Obama has undertaken a truly ambitious effort to redefine the United States' view of the world and to reconnect the United States with the emerging historical context of the twenty-first century. He has done this remarkably well.

Foreign policy must be about priorities. The United States cannot do everything everywhere.

My priority is to give the United States the kind of influence it should have.

Finally we are a nation with some conscience. It means alliances are extremely important when they're based on a national interest. We have to have the ability to sustain our presence within those alliances.

I'm a member of the Pacific Council on International Policy.

A great nation like the United States has many and varied interests, and we need both to do business with tyrants and to engage constantly in multilateral diplomacy.

Our alliances should be understood as a means to expand our influence, not as a constraint on our power. The expansion of democracy and freedom in the world should be a shared interest and value with all nations.

I wish Obama would focus on governing the United States and would forget his country's imperialist pretensions.

Foreign policy will require a strategic agility that, whenever possible, gets ahead of problems, strengthens U.S. security and alliances, and promotes American interests and credibility.

Unilateral preemption should not in any way be the model for how we conduct international relations.

I believe a relationship with a country is simply bound to the interests of two countries and not by personal issues.

An increasingly multipolar world requires an entirely different kind of U.S. foreign policy: far from being unilateralist, it necessitates a complex form of power-sharing on both a global and regional basis.

The principles that should guide American foreign policy are simple: the world is safer when America leads, only strength ensures peace and freedom, and America must stand with its allies and challenge its adversaries.

Ladies and gentlemen, it is with great sadness that I announce that I will resign as Australia's Minister for Foreign Affairs. I am sad because I love this job. I'm totally dedicated to the work that we are doing in Australia's name around the world, and I believe that we have achieved many good results for Australia, and I'm proud of them.

The mantra from the Obama State Department is 'smart power' - the not-so-new idea that all elements of national power should be utilized to influence other countries.