Regional Influence Quotes

Without Ukraine, Russia's imperial aspirations are essentially nostalgia, but it's not a real policy.

You can't give Russia the right to interfere with the internal affairs of counties in its area.... You have to drive up the cost to Russia for aggression.

There is no power on earth that can undo Pakistan

In soft regions are born soft men.

My father was the prime minister and we had Tamil Nadu's support.

I am a huge pessimist, and I think that's just the east-coast Jew in me.

As Maine goes, so goes Vermont.

The U.S. relationship with Bahrain is obviously more complicated than with Syria and Iran.

If Iran gets a nuclear weapon, its influence and that of Hamas and Hezbollah are strengthened.

I think that Hassan Nasrallah is the best leader in the Muslim world.

Egypt is a large, complex, very important country.

Hezbollah will support Assad to the end because his continuing hold on power is critical to its own survival.

I feel like I'm a New Yorker to the bone. But there is a lot of the South in me. I know there is a lot of the South in my mannerisms. There's a lot of the South in my expectations of other people and how people treat each other. There's a lot of the South in the way I speak, but it could never be home.

Mozambique and Zimbabwe must bring into being a new force in Malawi. We must not allow South Africa to set the course in Malawi... The victory is being planned... It demands cold-bloodedness.

Texas, with her superior natural advantages, must become a point of attraction, and the policy of establishing with her the earliest relations of friendship and commerce will not escape the eye of statesmen.

The United States' administrations... must recognize that Iran is a big power. Having said that, we consider ourselves to be a human force and a cultural power and hence a friend of other nations. We have never sought to dominate others or to violate the rights of any other country.

Taking stock of 'Operation Iraqi Freedom' a decade later, the Financial Times concluded that the US won the war, Iran won the peace, and Turkey won the contracts. I can only agree.

You should expect everything. Not necessarily through the government, the governments are not the only player in [Middle East] region.

Jordan seeks to play only one role, that of a model state. It is our aim to set an example for our Arab brethren, not one that they need follow but one that will inspire them to seek a higher, happier destiny within their own borders.

Mexico is the front door to South America - and the back door to the states...

The American administration is trying to achieve any gain in the shadow of the embarrassment hitting it because of its failures in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine after the failure of Israel's war on Lebanon and the retreat of America's project in the region.

As far as Afghanistan is concerned, I'm not sure whether the United States and Pakistan have the same objectives. Pakistan would like Afghanistan to be under its control.

Oil policy, policy toward the United States, policy toward Iran, Bahrain, Yemen, very unlikely, I think, to see significant change. These policies were the policies that had a wide family consensus. The question I think would be if the king becomes sick, whether you have weak Saudi leadership in the Arab world and the Middle East rather than strong Saudi leadership, but I think the fundamental policies will continue, the ones we’re familiar with under King Abdullah.

However, if Moscow regains control over Ukraine, with its 52 million people and major resources as well as access to the Black Sea, Russia automatically again regains the wherewithal to become a powerful imperial state, spanning Europe and Asia.

He [Nasan Nasrallah] is the shrewdest leader in the Arab world and the most dangerous.