Shahin Vahmanzadegan Quotes

What frustrates U.S. officials is that China sometimes seems more comfortable accommodating a strong United States, as it did in past decades, than partnering with an America that's less dominant.

Just as the United States doesn't like others to take charge, other countries also don't like the United States to play a dominant role in the United Nations.

Multilateralism may be little more than a polite way of camouflaging what is in practice unilateralism with allies.

Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations,—entangling alliances with none.

There are bonds of fraternity linking democratic countries.

Is the balance of power a fixed and unalterable standard? Or is it not a standard perpetually varying, as civilization advances, and as new nations spring up, and take their place among established political communities?

Conquest or superiority among other powers is not or ought not ever to be the object of republican systems.

What really matters for great powers is power—national economic and military strength—and that speaks loudly and clearly for itself.

Harmonious relations with a superpower like America should be a priority, but it does not mean that one should start begging from it.

We will ensure the interests of both the East and the West in Belarus. Don't try to rip us apart; don't try to make us collide with Russia or with the West.

On the day I became Soviet leader, in March 1985, I had a special meeting with the leaders of the Warsaw Pact countries and told them: 'You are independent, and we are independent. You are responsible for your policies, we are responsible for ours. We will not intervene in your affairs, I promise you.'

We, Russia, are prepared to work with others. I am convinced that stability and security in Europe cannot be considered without taking Russia into account.

However, it does seem now that the international community, more importantly the powers that have influence, and, even more importantly, Afghanistan's neighbors realize that it is high time that they work together, and not against one another.

If I correctly understand the goal of American policy, one wishes Russia to be a partner.

All in all, the League of Nations is not inevitably bound, as some maintain from time to time, to degenerate into an impotent appendage of first one, then another of the competing great powers.

I'm suggesting that, ironically, the secret to becoming a world 'hyperpower' is tolerance. If you look at history, you see great powers being very tolerant in their rise to global dominance.

There will always be nations. The United States will last a long, long time, I believe. France and Germany and Japan, China, other nations, they're going to exist. But they're losing their significance and ability to deal with certain matters.

All treaties between great states cease to be binding when they come in conflict with the struggle for existence.

I don't think there is necessarily a contradiction between being a hegemonic power on the one hand and functioning multilaterally on the other.

The United States' administrations... must recognize that Iran is a big power. Having said that, we consider ourselves to be a human force and a cultural power and hence a friend of other nations. We have never sought to dominate others or to violate the rights of any other country.

Every government is in some respects a problem for every other government.

World power is fleeting. Nations rise and fall.

In Western Europe there are now only small countries—those that know it and those that don't know it yet.

The United States is the world's best hope; but if you fetter her in the interests and quarrels of other nations, if you tangle her in the intrigues of Europe, you will destroy her power for good and endanger her very existence.

The relations of our two countries rest on traditional bases, quite other than those with other nations, and are of commanding influence on the whole of the world!