Lee Myung-bak Quotes

The key thing in Northeast Asia is North Korea. They are unpredictable; they are developing their nuclear capabilities and their missiles.

While our nation's attention is rightly focused on the Middle East, the North Korean threat has grown exponentially, while there seems to be a falling asleep, so to speak, at the switch when it comes to North Korea.

If we can deter the Soviet Union, if we can deter North Korea, why on earth can't we deter Iran?

If China is not going to solve North Korea, we will.

For now we must continue to strengthen our sanctions and pressure on North Korea.

The reason the United States is not so likely to invade Iran is precisely because of the lessons learned from Iraq. And conversely, the Iranian push towards nuclear capability is calculated to deter invasions like the kind deposing Saddam Husain.

I would not suggest the U.S. should sit down with the North Koreans bilaterally immediately after they've fired missiles - because the appearance is that you reward bad behavior. But if North Korea behaves for some period of time, I would pretty much favor direct talks.

Seen from the United States or Europe, Iran's nuclear program often causes most concern, but from the perspective of countries in the Asia-Pacific region, the North Korean program is equally worrying.

We probably could more successfully resolve the North Korean nuclear threat through game-theoretic reasoning. We could successfully resolve what American leaders seem to perceive as an Iranian nuclear threat through game-theoretic reasoning.

The format's better because it gives us a much stronger hand to play when going to the North Koreans unified, with our allies and partners in the region, all of us saying the same thing: telling them their current course is unacceptable.

With regard to North Korea, between myself and President Obama earlier, with regard to the so-called launch of satellite, the missile launch, we shared the view that it undermines the efforts of the various countries concerned to achieve the resolution through dialogue.

U.S. analysts estimate that Russian military expenditures have tripled during the Bush-Putin years, in large measure a predicted reaction to the Bush administration's militancy and aggressiveness.

If the North Korean Communists provoke another war, we must immediately deter it and give them a decisive counterattack at the initial place of aggression.

I have long believed, especially after the unprovoked Western attack on Iraq and the ransacking of the Gaddafi regime in Libya, that North Korea would not desist from the full development of its nuclear weapons program, despite threats and sanctions from the West and even from China.

The United States must not allow North Korea to exacerbate tensions between our key strategic allies in Asia. As the leader of the free world, the United States needs to support our regional allies who are standing up to a Stalinist regime that is intent on developing nuclear weapons.

By legitimizing Iran's nuclear program, removing the pressure of economic sanctions, and allowing it to obtain conventional weapons and ballistic missiles, this agreement makes the prospect for war more likely, not less.

The nuclear deal with Iran's radical clerics and their military junta is the most dangerous and potentially deadly action that the Obama administration has yet taken.

In 2018, my biggest worry is actually about North Korea. I worry a great deal that they may do a destructive attack, perhaps against our financial sector, in an attempt to deter a potential U.S. strike against either their nuclear facilities or even the regime itself.

As a result of the strategic patience policy, we now have North Korea testing four times an atomic weapon; they've violated numerous United Nations sanctions, U.S. sanctions by launching ballistic missile tests.

Syria is a problem, but Iran is a bigger problem.

If there's any country that has the capacity not to control North Korea, but to influence North Korea, it's still China. The Chinese always say they have very little influence. They have more than they say they do. We should put pressure on them to do it and there's finally, we're seeing the first signs of a little bit of Chinese disaffection. At some point they're getting tired of the antics of this country. This is a dangerous ally for China to have. And the more Chinese can pressure them and put the economic screws on them, the better it will be for everybody.

Every time North Korea commits an additional provocation, the U.N. Security Council passes another resolution. But when it comes to dialogue, currently there is nothing set. I hope to have frank and open discussions with President Trump on this issue.

In any case, it is better to have some deal than no deal, but it's interesting that Obama picked the day of implementing of Iran deal to impose new sanctions on North Korea.

I am well aware of the concern and fear of the Chinese about the THAAD deployment.

While it's important to be open-minded, we don't have to be naive. Although Iran claims they are developing nuclear capability only for peaceful purposes, it's most difficult to believe them when taking a step back to assess the big picture of Iran's threats and actions.