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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.

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
Next
Problem
Different
Something
Vietnam
Iraq
Lessons
Problems
Learn

More quotes by Brent Scowcroft

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The radical elements in Islam are very dangerous. They want to achieve a return to the Islamic purity of the Middle Ages.
Brent Scowcroft
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The Iraqis need help establishing a government. We have to provide them with security.
Brent Scowcroft
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The Iraqi elections were an important first step.
Brent Scowcroft
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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.
Brent Scowcroft
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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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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.
Brent Scowcroft
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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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Perhaps the most troubling area in the world goes from the Balkans through the Middle East and in Central Asia.
Brent Scowcroft
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We must find out where the roots of terrorism lie.
Brent Scowcroft
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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.
Brent Scowcroft
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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.
Brent Scowcroft
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Information technology has politicized the world's population.
Brent Scowcroft
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Yes, Israel's our ally. But, are the Palestinians our enemy? No, they are not.
Brent Scowcroft
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If Iraq were to descend into chaos, the Europeans would feel the effects just as much as we would.
Brent Scowcroft
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For most of mankind, the average person knew what was happening in his own village and the next one, and nothing beyond that, and he didn't care, so that leaders were able to guide their countries almost irrespective of what people really thought because they weren't involved in it. Now, everybody knows what's happening instantaneously.
Brent Scowcroft
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We can't make China a friend, but we can behave to make them an enemy.
Brent Scowcroft
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We believe we are creating the beginning of a new world order coming out of the collapse of the US-Soviet antagonisms.
Brent Scowcroft
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I think above all, what we need with Iran is patience.
Brent Scowcroft
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An idea can be as flawless as can be, but its execution will always be full of mistakes.
Brent Scowcroft
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The art of diplomacy is to take an opportunity and turn it into something.
Brent Scowcroft