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Europeans are familiar with terrorism and violence. We have not experienced a true conflict on our soil in a hundred years, and especially not one that involved 3,000 dead.

Brent Scowcroft

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Brent Scowcroft
Age: 95 †
Born: 1925
Born: March 19
Died: 2020
Died: August 6
Former National Security Advisor
Geopolitician
Military Officer
Politician
Ogden
Utah
Dead
Experienced
Violence
Soil
True
Terrorism
Years
Familiar
Conflict
Hundred
Especially
Involved
Europeans

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Many Sunnis, who are still stuck in the Saddam era mindset and believe Iraq belongs to them, are trying to prevent a new country from developing at all.
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The Europeans must finally understand the incredible shock triggered by the attacks of September 11.
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To sum up, the position we took was that since we didn't know the internal situation in Iraq nor Saddam Hussein, that our best bet was to take counsel from the people who did know him and who did deal with him.
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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.
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You know, different people are going to react different ways. And I don't think we should be intolerable because people do things a little differently.
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Perhaps the most troubling area in the world goes from the Balkans through the Middle East and in Central Asia.
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After the '30s, we said, no more Munichs. And it got us in a lot of problems. Then we said, No more Vietnams. Now if we say, No more Iraqs, the next one won't be an Iraq. It will be something different. You can't learn lessons.
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Osama bin Laden is going after us to get us out of the region, so he can deal with the regimes that he sees in the region, or replace them with purists.
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We have never recognized that Iran lives in a dangerous neighborhood. And it's not surprising that they want some protection. We have not been forthcoming about explaining a security relationship for the region, in which Iran can feel secure and thus maybe willing to do something.
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If Iraq were to descend into chaos, the Europeans would feel the effects just as much as we would.
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I think that America is a part of the world, that we want to cooperate with the world. We are not the dominant power in the world, that everyone falls in behind us. But we want to reach out and cooperate.
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The Iraqis need help establishing a government. We have to provide them with security.
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The Russians are not going to do what we want them to do because we want them to do it.
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America is stronger than any state probably since the Roman Empire. But we can't do what used to be done with that kind of strength.
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The Iraqi elections were an important first step.
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After all, we didn't bring democracy to Germany in 1945 Hitler destroyed democracy there first.
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I think above all, what we need with Iran is patience.
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We must find out where the roots of terrorism lie.
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But figuring out Saddam Hussein was one our greatest mysteries. He marched to his own drummer and frequently as this unfolded he made decisions which were sometimes inexplicable to us and sometimes didn't look very smart.
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Everybody is within reach of a television set. And so they're all politicized, and they're all stimulated, and then they have these desires, pleasures, hates, resentments, and so on, and they're reacting instantaneously.
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