Morgan Ortagus Quotes

I could have been very popular if I had launched a military attack on Iran but I chose patience.

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

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

President Trump is right to welcome China's help in bringing North Korea's illicit nuclear program to heal, but he's also correct that if China doesn't go along, the U.S. can act alone.

What I did warn about when I testified in front of Congress in 2002, I said if you want to worry about a state, it shouldn't be Iraq, it should be Iran. But this government, our administration, wanted to worry about Iraq, not Iran.

The United States prefers that Iraq meet its obligations voluntarily, yet we are prepared for the alternative.

Both Bibi and Obama realize that they are going to have to face the problem of Iran together.

There is very little hope that the United States or anyone else can do much to stabilize Iraq, Libya, Syria or Egypt. Stabilizing Iran, and bringing it back into the family of nations, is much more possible. That would be a 'win' for both sides.

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.

You should never take military intervention off the table. When you do so, you give an out to a rogue nation or rogue actors.

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.

Iran is for negotiations…. This is the principle of Iranian Foreign Policy…. Iranians should make sure that the United States is not using pressure on Iran for negotiations.

We're not trying to start a war; we're trying to send a political message.

The reason that our policy and negotiations with North Korea have failed so badly that is sane people negotiating with crazy people.

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.

Listen, every time we're meeting with our counterparts in Israel, the state of Iran is always something that's at the top of the list and the things we discuss. And that's because the regime in Iran continually threatens Israel, threatens the United States.

When it comes to Iran, we must not accept Obama's inconsistencies and weakness.

Obviously, having served in wars myself, I'm eager to do everything possible to avoid them, but our military capability vis-a-vis a country like Iran is a major source of leverage in any negotiation that we should never, ever give up.

We can pursue peaceful diplomacy with the Iranian regime while also continuing our maximum economic pressure campaign, while also defending ourselves... To say that it's a war with Iran or nothing is just a fundamental misunderstanding of how foreign policy actually works.

In my experience, bad actors respond to threats of military action or sanctions.

I'm not saying anyone should go to nuclear war with Russia. What we should do is contain them and show them that there are consequences if they do terrible things, which is what sanctions are all about.

Sanctions alone could not stop Iran's nuclear program. But they did help bring Iran to the negotiating table.

Another mess I inherited, and we have imposed new sanctions on the nation of Iran who has totally taken advantage of our previous administration, and they're the world's top sponsor of terrorism, and we're not going to stop until that problem is properly solved, and it's not properly solved now.

To honor the people that died, we need to stop the Iran agreement, for sure, because the Iranian mullahs have their blood on their hands, and we need to take out ISIS with every tool at our disposal.

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.'