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I could see America playing a slightly smaller role in the Middle East but I would not see us abandoning the region and just say Oh, like I said, China, Russia, it's yours now. Global focus is just on our hemisphere. I don't see that happening.

Thomas Friedman

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Thomas Friedman
Age: 71
Born: 1953
Born: July 20
Columnist
Journalist
Screenwriter
Television Producer
Writer
Saint Louis Park
Minnesota
Thomas Loren Friedman
Thomas L. Friedman
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China
Slightly
Role
Smaller
Roles
Regions
Playing
Global
Focus
Happenings
Middle
Russia
Abandoning
America
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Hemisphere
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Region

More quotes by Thomas Friedman

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That's right-the striking thing about greenhouse gases is the diversity of sources that emit them. A herd of cattle belching can be worse than highway full of hummers.
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Yes, the world is now flat for publishing as well.
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When you lose your job, the unemployment rate isn't four percent, it's 100 percent.
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In a hyper-connected world where average is over, there is one thing we know absolutely for sure: Every good job will require more education.
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I'm a capitalist. I believe in capitalism. But capitalism only works if you have safety nets to deal with people who are naturally left behind and brutalized by it.
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The Arab world had a big problem of frankly venal elites. That is why these revolutions happen, because people didn't think the opportunities were being shared fairly.
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The poverty fighters resent the climate-change folks climate folks hold summits without reference to biodiversity the food advocates resist the biodiversity protectors. They all need to go on safari together.
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A vision without resources is an hallucination.
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I don't think a monarchy led by 75- and 80-year-old men [Saudi Arabia] in today's modern world is really sustainable.
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The Middle East would always be an important trading partner in just a market sense, like America is a big market for us, Asia is a big market, Europe is a big market. You are going to have hundreds of millions of consumers there, from just a standard market point of view, from a very narrow American point of view.
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If you don't visit a bad neighborhood, it might visit you.
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The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein once remarked that if you ask a man how much is two plus two and he tells you five, that is a mistake. But if you ask a man how much is two plus two and he tells you ninety-seven, that is no longer a mistake. The man you are talking to is operating with a wholly different logic from your own.
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There is no substitute for face-to-face reporting and research.
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The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist -- McDonald's cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas, the builder of the F-15. And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley's technologies is called the United States Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps.
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Guantanamo Bay is the anti-Statue of Liberty.
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You take one bomber and deploy him in Baghdad, and another is manufactured in Riyadh the next day. It's exactly like when you take the toy off the shelf at Wal-Mart and another is made in Shen Zhen the next day.
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I am hoping, though, that many of them have kids, who, when they have a moment to take a break from their iPods, Internet, or Google, will explain to their parents running the country just how the world is being flattened.
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I think that competition will exist even if we discover more oil. We're never going to know how much we have, or how long will it last. You are always going to want to have diversity of supply. I think the Middle East will remain a region of competition, of global competition, fighting for a long time.
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You win the presidency by connecting with the American people's gut insecurities and aspirations. You win with a concept.
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What we have in the Bush team is a faith-based administration. It launched a faith-based war in Iraq, on the basis of faith-based intelligence, with a faith-based plan for Iraqi reconstruction, supported by faith-based tax cuts to generate faith-based revenues.
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