Sergei Lavrov Quotes

The statesmen still say that we should not interfere in the internal affairs of other nations and yet it is not possible any longer not to interfere, even when we do not mean to do so.

The international community unfortunately did take sides in Libya, and we would never allow the Security Council to authorise anything similar to what happened in Libya.

It's pretty well known that the CIA has been installing friendly dictators around the world for years.

I don't believe in ideology in international relations.

America simply prefers to deal with dictators.

We are pursuing what I trust is a correct course from the point of international law, and we are not intervening in the internal affairs of this country …

World politics is not a kindergarten.

We cannot permit hostage taking to shape the foreign policy of this country.

We believe US threats of an approaching World War III and their use of Iran's nuclear issue as an excuse is another form of American insanity.

A multipolar world means more compromise [on Human Rights violations]… more back-scratching and less principled denunciation.

Putin goes to bed at night knowing he can break all the rules, and the West will follow all the rules.

We Americans have no commission from God to police the world.

I'm a member of the Pacific Council on International Policy.

The answer dictates what the policy should be in our relationships with every country in the world.

Where in the Constitution does it say that because we don't like a foreign country's leader, we should go in and topple the dictator?

But, if you believe we should go around the world overturning regimes to make little United States, I don't agree with that, because I don't think we're capable of doing that.

So to recap: we may or may not be going to war with Iraq because Saddam may or may not have weapons of mass destruction, which he may or may not use, or pass to other terrorists groups with whom he may or may not have links.

The Vietnam War required us to emphasize the national interest rather than abstract principles. What President Nixon and I tried to do was unnatural. And that is why we didn't make it.

Someone has said that nations have interests, they don't have friends, and you see that over and over in U.S. policy.

We need somebody ready to be commander-in-chief on day one, who understands there are no moderates in Iran; they've been killed a long time ago.

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.

Some argue that recognition of the genocide has become even more problematic now, when the world is at war with terrorism and the United States cannot afford to offend the sensibility of our Turkish ally.

I think if you're going to master policy, especially world affairs, you've got to know history.

It's not the job of the U.S. military to do nation-building or produce democratic utopias.

In the Senate, there is a wide spectrum of views on foreign policy.