Richard Grenell Quotes

Too many members of the U.N. benefit from the status quo and won't make decisions for purely altruistic reasons.

Everybody likes to go to Geneva. I used to do it for the Law of the Sea conferences and you'd find those potentates from down in Africa, you know, rather than eating each other, they'd just come up and get a good square meal in Geneva

While most nations seemed to agree that something had to be done, every nation seemed to have a reason why some other nation should do it. So we sat, waiting for a promise to be kept, reduced to the role of accountants keeping track of how many were being killed.

When Barack Obama was running for president, he committed to leading the United Nations and other countries towards a common global goal. Obama believed that he could speak to allies and dictators directly and charm them into seeing the error of their ways.

There's something beautiful about working in the one place in the world where the world is present, like United Nations. Otherwise, one would have to go to each of these countries to negotiate.

I thought that the United Nations is a creature of the five super-powers who were given veto powers. I don't like veto powers at all.

I have concluded that the U.N. can do a few things well.

Now, the United Nations is an organization that I believe was founded with good intentions. As a matter of fact, a prominent Tennessean named Cordell Hull was very involved with it.

We shouldn't discuss the world of tomorrow in terms of becoming a balance to the United States. The real issue is whether the United States will define herself as part of the U.N. system-or not.

The U.N. can be very frustrating and at times impotent, but it can also be a valuable forum for discussion and resolution of world problems. We should not walk away from it just because it's failed to live up to its promise.

Legislation that would withhold funding for the United Nations is fundamentally flawed in concept and practice, sets us back, is self-defeating, and doesn't work.

Probably the most useful thing I can do as secretary of state is to assist the president in adapting and renewing the transnational institutions that were created after World War II.

What we need now is a Treaty of the World not a Treaty of Rome.

I don't know that there is much the United States can do except work with the international community.

America has a critical role to play as the most powerful member of the world community.

There are big issues, like the reform of the Security Council. These kinds of questions are something the President of the General Assembly must keep his eye on.

If the U.N. didn't exist, we'd be inventing it right now.

I think U.N. organizations are important organizations. They exist for good reasons. And we also admit that there is room for us to improve the way we do business. The WHO will be a very positive and proactive partner in the overall U.N. reform, which is also important.

India seeks to be a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council... things like this don't happen automatically, you need constant dialogue and discussion with the world.

I really do hope that the Millennium Summit gives new impetus to the work of the United Nations.

I will do everything in my power to ensure that our United Nations can live up to its name, and be truly united; so that we can live up to the hopes that so many people around the world place in this institution, which is unique in the annals of human history.

The United Nations has become a place where many countries seek to achieve a lynching of the United States by resolution.

I think the American people, understandably, have sort of lost faith in the United Nations.

The matter of international relations is very subtle and exquisite.

But I would say if the Security Council is only relevant if it agrees with the United States, then we have come a long way in a direction that I do not like very much.