Pete Hoekstra Quotes

The deep problems that afflict the Middle East are not easy to fix, but they must be dealt with if we are not to see a son of ISIS, or even a grandson of ISIS, developing in the years to come.

Iran is not an enemy of ISIS; they have a lot to gain from the turmoil that ISIS creates.

The rise of ISIS in Iraq is a wider threat to the stability of the Middle East and the West than many realise.

ISIS filled the vacuum in Iraq and Syria created by a lack of effective governance.

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

Last chances in the Middle East have been two a dirham since the 1950s. Each year the enmities are more profound, the despots more bloodthirsty and clownish, the violence more extreme, and the conditions of ordinary existence more ghastly.

The presence of jihadis in Syria should be no surprise.

ISIS is in many ways a creation of the Syrian regime.

There is no question that Iraq is one of the main problems. You'd have to be blind not to see what a magnet and generating force it's become for terrorist groups.

I think it is absolutely correct to solve the problem of terrorism in Iraq and Syria and Libya.

The Middle East conflict has become the locus of the final war between Muslims and the West

Isis Remains! ISIS Expands!.

One of the greatest fears of the Arab world is a direct conflict between Israel and the Islamic State.

To destroy the Islamic State, you have to fix Syria. You have to look at the reasons that created the Islamic State. This is a huge task.

You know the Middle East is going crazy when Lebanon is the most peaceful place in the region.

Syria is attracting a lot more Westerners than the Iraq War ever did because it's the perfect Sunni jihad.

If anything caused ISIS, it was the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq.

The more the Iranians are seen to be dominating the region, the more it is going to inflame Sunni radicalism and fuel the rise of groups like the Islamic State.

Saudi Arabia is a frightened monarchy. It's beset by Sunni extremists from the Islamic State and Shiite extremists backed by Iran.

ISIS did not come down from the sky. They found the opportunity to grow, and the world allowed them to grow.

The biggest danger for any organism is to not identify that it's being threatened. I want to hope that people realize that the source of danger and risk in the Middle East is not the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but the deep radical Islamic vision of forming a global caliphate.

British intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan swelled the grievances home-grown fanatics fed off, while al Qaeda morphed and re-grouped in lawless sanctuaries from Somalia to Yemen.

The Turks have not been historically good about keeping pressure on ISIS.

I have long argued that ISIS and Assad are not separate problems to be chosen between, but are action and reaction, cause and symptom, chicken and egg: impossible to untangle no matter how much we might like to.

I think everybody realizes some things went wrong in the Middle East and that most of the terrorism is emanating from that area.