Bashir Assad Quotes

Governments can expect to act multilaterally or unilaterally—but not have it both ways at the same time.

The clever, albeit fragile, coalition against terrorism brought together by the U.S. government might be able to advance the transition from classical international law to a cosmopolitan order.

All foreign policy is the intervention of one nation's domestic politics into another nation's domestic politics.

It is simply not feasible for sovereignty to be exercised unilaterally by individual nation-states, however powerful. It is a principle which will yield only slowly and reluctantly to the imperatives of global environmental cooperation.

International institutions like the UN can only be as effective as its members allow it to be.

I'm resolved to be active on diplomacy as Japan further develops relationships based on trust and cooperation with countries including the U.S.

Any cooperation that doesn't go through the Syrian government is not legal. If it's not legal, we cannot cooperate with, and we don't recognize and we don't accept.

I believe we should continue to have a partnership of national states each retaining the right to protect its vital interests, but developing more effectively than at present the habit of working together.

…though the American government did much to encourage the organs of the League, the fact that it stood aside, sharing neither the rights nor the duties of the League powers, was a fatal handicap to joint action.

[Sanctions] make us feel like a player in foreign policy where our powers tend to be more limited …. We’re less patient with diplomacy.

The reason for having diplomatic relations is not to confer a compliment, but to secure a convenience.

Many global solutions still require the binding force and permanence that only treaties can provide.

The rules that organizations such as the United Nations rely on were not written by the majority of the world’s people, who have long seen powerful states declare exceptions for themselves. Newly powerful states will challenge this system --

Frankly, Senators, if nations may not safely agree to respect each other’s rights, and may not agree to confer if one party to the compact threatens trespass, or may not agree to advise if one party to the pact is threatened by an outside power, then all concerted efforts to tranquilize the world and stabilize peace must be flung to the winds. Either these treaties must have your cordial sanction, or every proclaimed desire to promote peace and prevent war becomes a hollow mockery

For the most part, the suppression of any kind of vice is regarded as a domestic problem, to be handled by one state without interference from its neighbors. But even leaving aside all moral considerations, it is true that so integrated has the world become that now-a-days one nation soon finds it impossible to prohibit the entrance of undesirable articles or persons into its own country without the cooperation of other countries. We have seen this in the case of liquor, drugs and immigrants. For these reasons the drug problem has become international.

Perfectionism, no less than isolationism or imperialism or power politics, may obstruct the paths to international peace. Let us not forget that the retreat to isolationism a quarter of a century ago was started not by a direct attack against international cooperation but against the alleged imperfections of the peace.

International law has no simple enforcement mechanism.

The U.N. charter bars the threat of force.

I think there is a failure in foreign policy. And you have to acknowledge that under Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton was the architect of that foreign policy. Whether it was malevolent or not, I don't know.

I do not accept the right of big powers to change governments as and when it affects their interests.

We need a relevant and efficient United Nations.

I think we are realizing that we are going to have to have an international rule of law.

There is, and there will be, an increasing demand for a principled global security provider, for a superpower that believes in multilateralism and cooperation.

The U.N. was created for people.

In international relations, you don't base your work on hope.