Henry A. Kissinger Quotes

As was true in Iraq and Libya, the United States has no credible government or leader able to bring order, security, and freedom to the people of Syria if Assad is overthrown.

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

They want to derail peace because they want to plunge Northern Ireland back into armed conflict.

The main problem that we have in Lebanon, and in the region, is we don't have a real peace process and I think this is the main focal problem that we have in the region.

ISIS controls a territory roughly the size of Maryland where 8 million people live. If it's attacked and toppled, who will fill the void?

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

One only has to look at the debacle that has unfolded in Iraq after the withdrawal of U.S. troops at the end of 2011 to have a sneak preview of what could take place in an Afghanistan without some kind of residual American presence.

But I would make it unambiguously clear that we are going to withdraw, and if Iraq falls into civil war and if all these unhappy things occur, we're just going to have to accept them.

The fate of Syria hangs in the balance, but it is entirely possible that the fall of the Assad regime will result in anarchy and cause Syria to turn into a second Afghanistan, a base for anti-Israel terrorism.

The understanding of Syria's devastating civil war has been distorted by the immense danger and difficulty of covering it.

If Sudan starts to crumble, the shock waves will spread.

The invasion of Iraq, particularly, gave a big shot in the arm to the jihadi extremists.

I would not be surprised to see Syria break apart entirely.

If the American military begins to withdrawal, there will be no need for these armed groups.

The Lebanese Civil War, 1975-1990, spanned four World Cups. It would have been a more symmetrical five had the Lebanese begun in 1974, but you know, we're Mediterranean, and timing isn't our forte.

We in the West walked away from Afghanistan at the end of the Cold War and left it as a country devastated socially and armed to the teeth. If we do that again, there will be consequences.

The situation in Iraq is dangerous but the regional situation is also very complicated and precarious.

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

if you allow…for a civil war to happen between the Shiites and the Sunnis, Iraq is finished forever. It will be dismembered. It will not only be dismembered, it will cause so many conflicts in the region that it will bring the whole region into a turmoil that will be hard to resolve

I think a weakened, fragmented, chaotic Iraq, which could happen if this isn’t done carefully, is more dangerous in the long run than a contained Saddam is now.

Civil wars tend to spread to neighboring countries. That’s what history shows.

Extremism in Syria cannot be contained within Syria.

Western history shows that the current legitimacy crises in the Middle East is neither unprecedented in its gravity nor likely to resolve itself in any straightforward manner.

Libya is a failed state and becoming a launching pad for external operations, as is Sinai in Egypt.

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