Mideast Conflict Quotes

It took the Gulf War to demonstrate that America did want more than one friend in the Mideast, and also was willing to take and make major risks to prevent a small Muslim country, Kuwait, from being overrun and in effect stolen by Iraq.

The President of Iran is a genocidal maniac.

I will stand with Israel if they are attacked.

In the United States, Iran is nothing but a whipping-boy. Few Americans have any real use for Iran. Most of us, what we know and remember about Iran are things like the hostage crisis in 1980, or they think about the Iranian attacks in Lebanon, or on the Khobar Towers. So you don't get a whole lot of political mileage in the United States by going out and advocating better relations with the Iranians.

Turkey's solidarity with Hamas is not, of course, based on Arab nationalism, which as a non-Arab nation it does not support. It is instead based on a definition of the Mideast conflict as one between Jews and Muslims, precisely the position of Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda.

Foreign policy is something Americans care about when the economy is good, and when it isn't, they hardly notice it. It's hard to worry about what happens in the Mideast when you don't have a job in the Midwest.

Russia's leader, Vladimir Putin, has managed to retain high approval ratings despite his slumping economy by seizing Crimea from Ukraine and participating in the Syrian war that is destabilizing the Mideast and, increasingly, Europe and the West.

Our basic objective will be the destruction of Israel. The Arab people want to fight.

This week the White House proposed fingerprinting and photographing foreign visitors so they can do background checks. Officials in Saudi Arabia said this will only increase anti-American feelings in the Mideast. Is that possible? Gee, you hate to have people dislike us for no reason. Things were going so well.

I just don't understand how Kerry or Obama or anybody else thought Assad was going to change.

None of us condone terrorism in any way, shape, or form, and I believe Hezbollah is a terrorist organization that was, is, and remains a threat to peace in the Mideast, and must be dismantled and disarmed.