Michael Hastings Quotes

Our country is being bled daily in an effort to create a democracy in a place where it never existed.

Is military occupation likely to be the midwife of democracy?

Iraq is a terrible place. Some fool American is going to come out here and try to redesign it

We toppled the Taliban government in Afghanistan without thinking of what is next.

[ Iraq and Afghanistan] don't get better, they only get worse. Bombing them has only enabled them to grow and multiply.

Baghdad fell on April 9, 2003, Hussein and his regime were brought down, we declared "Mission Accomplished" and celebrated victory . . . and chaos erupted. We did not assert control and authority over the country, especially Baghdad. We did not bring with us the capacity to impose our will. We did not take charge. And Iraq did not in a few weeks magically transform itself into a stable nation with democratic leaders. Instead a raging insurgency engulfed the country.

Johnny Apple, a New York Times correspondent, wrote a front-page story saying Afghanistan could be a quagmire and he was mocked and derided. What is certainly true is that all sorts of resources that would have been used in Afghanistan were diverted to Iraq. Would those resources have helped? Almost undoubtedly. Whether or not Afghanistan would be a peaceful nation-state had we not gone into Iraq I doubt. Afghanistan is going to be Afghanistan, no matter how hard we try to make it something else.

Look at the results of regime change in Iraq. You can't possibly claim that it was successful.

We are not going to abandon Iraq.

We can't have a failure in Iraq, but we also can't be there for the next 10 years because if we are, it's going to become, I think, a failure in and of itself.

It's a tribal state, and it always will be. Whether we like it or not, whenever we withdraw from Afghanistan, whether it's now or years from now, we'll have an incendiary situation. Should we stay and play traffic cop? I don't think that serves our strategic interests.

To leave Afghanistan as a playground for terrorists and adventurers was simply not possible anymore.

Anybody who believes that we can democratize Iran, Iraq and Syria by military force is living in a fantasy world.

Iraq may be able to run along in a corrupt, inefficient, oriental sort of way, something better than she was under Turkish rule…. If this is the result, even though it be not a very splendid one, we shall have built better than we know.

Sure we won the war, but the peace we’re losing badly.

The United States must learn to rebuild states after overturning their regimes.

I’d rather build highways here then try nation building in Iraq

I would hope that we have in place the adequate resources to become an army of occupation because you’re going to walk into chaos

History will judge the war against Iraq not by the brilliance of its military execution, but by the effectiveness of the post-hostilities activities

Listen, we’re making good progress in Iraq. Sometimes its hard to tell it when you listen to the filter.

The occupation of Iraq is completely self-perpetuating: The worse things get the more we are obliged to stay. And the longer we stay the worse things get.

We can not want Democracy more than they [the Iraqis] do and expect to succeed.

The Afghans are scared. Some are scared that the Americans will leave. Some are scared that the Americans will not leave. They are scared of the Taliban. They are scared of predatory government.

Since 2001, NATO or its leading member states have initiated military operations in Afghanistan, Iraq and Lybia. All three campaigns led to various forms of regime change, and. in the case of Iraq and Lybia, the deterioration of the state.

The situation of any leader in the Middle East is not easy.