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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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Brent Scowcroft
Age: 95 †
Born: 1925
Born: March 19
Died: 2020
Died: August 6
Former National Security Advisor
Geopolitician
Military Officer
Politician
Ogden
Utah
Russians
Going

More quotes by 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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Yes, Israel's our ally. But, are the Palestinians our enemy? No, they are not.
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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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The Iraqis need help establishing a government. We have to provide them with security.
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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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Information technology has politicized the world's population.
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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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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After all, we didn't bring democracy to Germany in 1945 Hitler destroyed democracy there first.
Brent Scowcroft
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The Europeans must finally understand the incredible shock triggered by the attacks of September 11.
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.
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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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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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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America wants to work with friends, with allies, with people of good will, to make this a better world.
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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Who is the guarantor, if there is one, of a more stable world? It's the United States.
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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The art of diplomacy is to take an opportunity and turn it into something.
Brent Scowcroft