Rahm Emanuel Quotes

The decision to withdraw our missile defense sites from Poland put us in greater jeopardy, in my view.

I think Russia is dangerous, not a superpower. I know what the president is trying to say. I worked for him for five years, not just two.He doesn't want us to overreact. He doesn't want to go back to the Cold War and some superpower competition. But my own view, and I think General Mattis stated something similar today, is that Russia is a challenge for the United States. It is a threat to some of our allies.

Think about it: Iran, Cuba, Venezuela - these countries are tiny compared to the Soviet Union. They don't pose a serious threat to us the way the Soviet Union posed a threat to us.

Who said that think we should normalize relations with Iran tomorrow? I never said that. I think we should move forward as quickly as we can.

Think of Iraq as "East Korea," because it was a shoot the cuffs war for the edification of Kim Jong Il to let him know we've now circled the SUVs. Iraq was about breaking adhesions, getting lean, staying frosty - in short, getting ready for the big Doug MacArthur Memorial Cage Match to come.

Please don't suggest that I think we normalize relations with Tehran tomorrow. We don't. But I would like to see us move forward, and hopefully some day that will happen.

I had said from the start that I thought Iraq was a mistake, that we should have stayed focused on Afghanistan. I think it was the right decision because the Taliban at that point had gotten a lot of momentum before I'd gotten into office, partly because we hadn't been paying attention as much as we needed to to Afghanistan.

In a new interview, Secretary of State Colin Powell repeated that the U.S. has no plans to attack Syria or Iran. After hearing this Donald Rumsfeld responded, 'Like he'd know.'

The world should be very clear about making sure that Iran does not get nuclear weapons, period.

The U.S. engages with North Korea, so I don't see why they can't engage with Iran.

The whole kind of post-World War I settlement that formed the modern Middle East is in danger of collapsing, and we can - we, the United States, you know, the preeminent power in the world - we can say that we want to ignore that, but how long can we avert our gaze? And how long can we stay out?

My time as editor has been overlapped by a crisis - a prolonged, labyrinthine, tragic, seemingly non-ending crisis - that involves the prehistory of 9/11, 9/11, Iraq, Afghanistan, fraught histories between the United States and almost everyone.

The U.S. relationship with Bahrain is obviously more complicated than with Syria and Iran.

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.

The Iranians are not part of the “axis of Evil”. They are part of the axis of Medieval.

Doesn't it seem awfully strange that the Iraqi government we support is an ally of the Iranians who are our declared enemies? Are we not now supporting the Iranians by propping up their allies in Iraq?

If the United States credibly threatens to treat Pakistan like it does Iran, Pakistan’s leaders would find it best to cooperate.

America's real national security interest in the region is protecting our friend Israel.

Leadership is absolutely vital if there are comparable countries which can affect the security of the world you live in. Between Lincoln and Roosevelt's time, America was protected by huge oceans and, in practice, by the British navy. Today, it's different, and the obsession of the Obama administration has been for retrenchment.

After the invasion of Afghanistan, when the focus suddenly turned toward Iraq, I suddenly thought, 'What on earth had Iraq got to do with the war on terror?'

I think Donald Trump is very, very cautious about nuclear weapons, and he's seriously concerned. And this might be one of the reasons he wants to deal with Putin carefully, because he's aware of how many nuclear weapons Putin has, and that Russian doctrine is much more open about using nuclear weapons than is American doctrine.

You know, this is a very strange phenomenon. I keep reading that in American newspapers, and I keep reading extensive speculations. I meet with the Chinese leaders periodically, and while I don't say they've endorsed the missile shield, it has not been in the forefront of their discussions.

Democrats and Republicans love Israel and all of us care about the existential threat to Israel from Iran.

The most upsetting thing is that the US is a leader in the world, and if they don't sign, then how do you expect to convince Russian and China and Iran, Pakistan, all these other countries, to sign? They simply won't. (The US government) feels it's against their constitutional right to bear arms, or they've said that it's needed in North and South Korea, on the border. I don't think any of these are good enough excuses for the damage.

Early withdrawal from Iraq would result in unarguably, defeat and humiliation for the United States. There's no question. We would be defeated by definition. We would be humiliated in that defeat.