Regional Change Quotes

Across the region, those rights that we take for granted are being claimed with joy by those who are prying loose the grip of an iron fist.

Demographically, socially, and culturally, the re-conquest of the Southwest United States … is well underway.

I've been a conservative in West Virginia before that was popular. I've seen a change in West Virginia. Not a change in John Raese, but a change in West Virginia and a change in America.

School desegregation cases overturned not only the constitutional precedents built up over three quarters of a century but the social structure of an entire region ... Desegregation decrees have all the qualities of social legislation ...

Therefore, the question is not whether such democratization is possible, but instead how to meet the yearning of the masses in the Middle East for democracy; in other words, how to achieve democratization in the Middle East.

It is the growing periphery of the Arab world - the masses at its margins, not its feeble and decaying center - that is shaping the future of the region.

Under my leadership, the government will strive for peace and will not miss an opportunity to bring about regional change.

With respect to our friends in the [Iraq] region, each has its own system, each will have to make its own judgment as to whether it will change, how fast it will change, and we hope that we can help influence them as to how change comes about and what change might be better for them than other forms of change.

Certainly we've seen the enormous changes across the whole of the Middle East. The democratic genie is out of the bottle.

If you really wanted to settle down the Middle East, if what you wanted was change in the Middle East, it is perfectly obvious that the first step is resolving the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.

Iraq is a very important part of securing the homeland, and its a very important part of helping change the Middle East into a part of the world that will not serve as a threat to the civilized world, to people like - or to the developed world, to people like - in the United States.

It has been an honor to work in the Obama Administration and to serve this President, particularly during a period of unprecedented change in the broader Middle East. Obviously, there is still work to do but I promised my wife I would return to government for only two years and we both agreed it is time to act on my promise.

I'm absolutely confident that the actions we took in Iraq are influencing reformers and freedom lovers in the greater Middle East. And I believe that you're going to see the rise of democracy in many countries in the broader Middle East, which will lay the foundation for peace.

There have been plenty of markers that show that this [Iraq] is a country that is worth the investment, because once it emerges as a country that is a stabilising factor, you will have a very different kind of Middle East.

What is likely to happen? Either an escalation of violence or an entire change in the whole Middle East theater. It may well happen, and I say this to my Palestinian friends, that the Palestinians have in a certain way missed their hour. They had their moment when the world's public opinion was behind them, and a considerable part of the Israeli public was willing to compromise with them.

I think it's almost impossible for any expert to predict for the rapid changes we see in the Middle East. They are rapid and they will continue for quite a while.

Israel is beginning to look as the Biblical descriptions of the country describe it. That had not come about in all the years that the British had a mandate there or that the Arabs controlled the land.

I firmly believe that a free Iraq will be a catalyst to other substantive and important changes in that part of the world.

We were using the record as a tool to invest money into real estate all through the South, because we were living in an era where the South was changing.

I am not that concerned that innovation in some large scale sense will suddenly and abruptly shift from one part of the world to another.

I believe democracy will succeed in Tunisia, but I also believe that it will succeed in the other Arab Spring countries.