Donald Trump Quotes

As I watch what is happening in the Middle East and the carnage that comes over our television screens every evening, I cannot help but ask myself, what is wrong with humankind that we cannot stop the killing?

I sincerely believe that if Bush and Cheney recognized the full humanity of other people's mothers around the world, they wouldn't commit the crimes they commit.

The Middle East does not follow Las Vegas rules. Whatever happens in the Middle East affects the rest of the world.

I'm a little disappointed in what's happened. I'm beginning to lose faith in Obama. This Syria thing is ridiculous. He should not be drawing red lines.

The 2003 war in Iraq may be considered the greatest error in American policy since the Civil War. Its ramifications are earth-shattering and will impact us and our safety for generations. It may completely unravel the entire Middle East forever.

No one wins a war. It is true, there are degrees of loss, but no one wins.

Reasonable, even intelligent people can, and frequently do, disagree on how best to achieve peace in the Middle East, but, peace must be the goal of our foreign policy tools, whether they be by the stick or by the carrot.

Going to war against Iran - whether one calls such a move 'surgical' or 'total' - would be an extremely serious undertaking; with worldwide economic, military, diplomatic and human ramifications in both the short- and the long-term.

The United States has dealt with the Middle East and surrounding regions for many decades in the context of the Cold War.

In foreign policy, the only thing worse than not doing something is doing something that fails or makes the situation worse.

Even before 9/11 I was gripped by a sense of dread: our lack of criticism about what we were doing in the Middle East - the slagging off of a whole religious tradition.

I don't claim to know Israel. I don't speak Hebrew; my contacts are pretty limited. But I didn't know Vietnam; I didn't know Nicaragua, El Salvador or Honduras. It doesn't mean you can't reach your conclusions.

What Ottawa and Washington used to think about Turkey or Iran was not very important because we really didn't think much about either, but now what we think about them is extremely important - to ourselves and to many other peoples.

I studied international relations in England, and I wanted to pursue higher education and be able to analyze what was going on in Iran politically, not only in Iran, but in the Middle East.

Every new president flatters himself that he, kinder and gentler, is beginning the world anew. Yet, when Barack Obama in his inaugural address reached out to Muslims by saying, 'To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect,' his formulation was needlessly defensive and apologetic.

I don't much believe in bumper sticker characterizations of foreign policy.

I am the Counselor at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

War is the greatest failure of mankind.

Our safety requires a long-term military presence in the Middle East because that's where the plans to attack us are emanating.

America's relations with complex Middle Eastern states such as Egypt are often difficult.

I don't think anyone would look at Colombia today and say that it is failing. This positive outcome is an example of the effective application of smart power - it is succeeding.

Secretary Clinton and I have worked well together, but the Arab Spring is a different question... This administration, collectively, made some very bad decisions, and they now have to climb out of a deep hole.

America faced its first hostage crisis in the Middle East… Thomas Jefferson was President and over 100 Americans were being held hostage by Arabs from the Barbary Coast and the Arabs believed that if they were killed, they would go immediately to heaven. 220 years later America is still facing the same problem.

Historians in the future will surely wonder what went so wrong when the United States, for the first time ever, focused its foreign policy on the Islamic world.

Every foreign policy has to have a moral purpose.