John Bolton Quotes

The president had a press conference about this this week and he said that the U.S. has no plans to attack North Korea. And then he added, 'Like having no plan ever stopped me before.'. He has something even more deadly in store for them - we're going to bring them democracy.

By linking these countries together in his 'axis of evil' speech, President Bush implied an identity between them not only in terms of their threat, but also in terms of the action necessary to deal with the threat. A lot of work will now need to be done to delink the three, and to show why military action against Iraq is so much more justified than against Iran and North Korea.

We can't just pop off and drop a bomb on North Korea and think everything's going to be OK. It just doesn't work like that. It's a complicated puzzle.

By threatening war against Iran, Iraq and North Korea in his now-famous "Axis of Evil" address, the president painted himself into a corner. Either Bush now goes to war against one of these regimes, or he will be humiliated and exposed as a bellicose bluff.

I'm very pleased this military engagement together with a political road map that we developed, we were able to continue. We want to bring about a political solution there. We worked very closely together [with Barack Obama] on the issue of annexation of Crimea and Russia's attempt to actually conquer Ukraine and actually, they did so, conquer part of the territory. We tried to come to a peaceful settlement here on this.

I'm getting a little fed up with hearing about, oh, civilian casualties. I think we ought to nuke North Korea right now just to give the rest of the world a warning.

Regime change has been an American policy under the Clinton administration, and it is the current policy. I support the policy. But regime change in and of itself is not sufficient justification for going to war--particularly unilaterally--unless regime change is the only way to disarm Iraq of the weapons of mass destruction pursuant to the United Nations resolution.

Let's be clear: Neither Secretary Powell or I opposed the notion of removing Saddam Hussein by force, but we wanted to avoid the war if we could. But if we couldn't, the notion of removing Saddam Hussein from the scene seemed eminently sensible, given that you had, what, 16 or so U.N. Security Council resolutions basically saying the same thing.

To avoid a military conflict, Saddam Hussein has no other choice than to leave the country.

America did not invade Iraq because Iraqis are Muslims. Oil, money, economic interests. Who knows? But it was not because Iraqis are Muslims.

We have treated our most serious adversaries, such as Iran and North Korea, in the most juvenile manner - by giving them the silent treatment. In so doing, we have weakened, not strengthened, our bargaining position and our leadership.

Foreign interventions always end badly.

What Iran wants and what North Korea wants is respect.

As a liberal and progressive, I abhor the notion of conflict and bloodshed and very much want to find a diplomatic solution to the Iran nuclear issue.

Israel cannot afford to stand against the entire world and be denounced as the aggressor.

The international community unfortunately did take sides in Libya, and we would never allow the Security Council to authorise anything similar to what happened in Libya.

I'm not sure you can do anything quickly or easily with the North.

Countries that intervene militarily rarely do so out of pure altruism.

We have a model that we're following, and it's the Libya model.

I started, actually, as an analyst on African affairs, mainly on Al Jazeera. I remember the first few series were about Saudi students, and the negotiations between the government and the Sudanese rebels in the south. And then, slowly, I was speaking about Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and a few other places.

The United Nations passed so-called sanctions again on North Korea, and they've said they 'will exercise their preemptive right to a nuclear attack.' I don't think this ought to be taken kindly.

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.

As a Korean War Veteran, I know too well the troubling nature of war. This is why I will always support a diplomatic answer before military intervention.

If your government had given me a thousandth of the sum it spent to depose me, I could have won that war.

I don't think we would have had to be an occupying power if we had done the right thing in 1991.