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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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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
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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.
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.
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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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We can't make China a friend, but we can behave to make them an enemy.
Brent Scowcroft
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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.
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.
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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.
Brent Scowcroft
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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.
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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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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Much of what we know about mathematics and trade comes from the Arabs. Then came stagnation, and now they're the West's whipping boy. This is a problem that cannot be solved overnight, and certainly not militarily.
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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The Russians are not going to do what we want them to do because we want them to do it.
Brent Scowcroft
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Information technology has politicized the world's population.
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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Who is the guarantor, if there is one, of a more stable world? It's the United States.
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.
Brent Scowcroft