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The art of diplomacy is to take an opportunity and turn it into something.

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
Turns
Opportunity
Art
Take
Something
Diplomacy
Turn

More quotes by Brent Scowcroft

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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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We can't make China a friend, but we can behave to make them an enemy.
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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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
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We must find out where the roots of terrorism lie.
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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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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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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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.
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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The Iraqi elections were an important first step.
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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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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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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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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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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Who is the guarantor, if there is one, of a more stable world? It's the United States.
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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After all, we didn't bring democracy to Germany in 1945 Hitler destroyed democracy there first.
Brent Scowcroft
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The radical elements in Islam are very dangerous.
Brent Scowcroft