Zbigniew Brzezinski
AIPAC has consistently opposed a two-state solution, and a lot of members of Congress have been intimidated, and I don't think that's healthy.
Constant reference to a 'war on terror' did accomplish one major objective: It stimulated the emergence of a culture of fear.
The mullahs are part of the past in Iran, not its future. But change in Iran will come through engagement, not through confrontation.
The security link between us and Europe is very important for European security but also for our security.
The Soviet Union's termination, which brought to an end the bipolar world, ushered in an era of U.S. hegemony. Hegemony, however, should not be confused with omnipotence. Hegemony is not omnipotence but is certainly preponderance.
We didn't push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would.
We defended our allies in Europe for 40 years during the worst days of the Cold War - very threatening days of the Cold War - and nothing happened. So deterrence does work.
Hard power makes sense under some circumstances. But there's not a universal solution to global problems.
The Sino-American competition involves two significant realities that distinguish it from the Cold War: neither party is excessively ideological in its orientation; and both parties recognize that they really need mutual accommodation.
Foreign policy should not be justified through making oneself feel good, but through results that have tangible consequences.
Let's cooperate and challenge the administration to cooperate with us because within the administration there are also moderates and people who are not fully comfortable with the tendencies that have prevailed in recent times.
Economically, we are, to some significant degree, interdependent with Chinese well-being. That is a great asset.
Terrorism cannot be isolated from its political, historical, and even social context.
We should seek to cooperate with Europe, not to divide Europe to a fictitious new and a fictitious old.
We all have the right to comment about each other.
The problem with the Iranian regime, of course is, one, its unsettling effects on the Sunnis, particularly Saudi Arabia, and, secondly, its potential threat to Israel.
I draw a very clear distinction between populism and democracy.
Commitment and credibility go hand in hand.
I do think America has made it quite clear that it is in the interest both of America and China to avoid situations in which they will be pushed toward a collision.
The financial catastrophe of 2008 nearly precipitated a calamitous economic depression, jolting America and much of the West into a sudden recognition of their systemic vulnerability to unregulated greed.
Not to mention the fact that of course terrorists hate freedom. I think they do hate. But believe me, I don't think they sit there abstractly hating freedom.
I'm all in favour of grand important speeches, but the president then has to link his sermons to a strategy.
Look: I don't want to live with a nuclear Iran. I would like to make it uncomfortable for them to seek it.
The war of choice in Iraq could never have gained the congressional support it got without the psychological linkage between the shock of 9/11 and the postulated existence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
With the decline of America's global preeminence, weaker countries will be more susceptible to the assertive influence of major regional powers.
I don't feel I was 'born American,' but my homeland was denied to me after the end of World War II, and I craved something I could identify with. When I became a student at Harvard in the 1950s, America very quickly filled the vacuum. I felt I was American, but I think it's more revealing of America how quickly others here accepted me.
Neither the United States nor Israel has the capacity to impose a unilateral solution in the Middle East.
The difference between the Bush I war against Iraq and the Bush II war against Iraq is that in the first one, we appealed to the sentiments and interests of the different groupings in the region and had them with us. In the second one, we did it on our own, on the basis of false premises, with extremely brutality and lack of political skill.
Yes, ISIS is a threat. It's more than a nuisance. It's also in many respects criminal violence. But it isn't, in my view, a central strategic issue facing humanity.
If we can deter the Soviet Union, if we can deter North Korea, why on earth can't we deter Iran?
Rushing to war is not a wise course of action.
We can't have an intelligent foreign policy unless we have an intelligent public, because we're a democracy.
The 'war on terror' has created a culture of fear in America.
I have been struck by the pervasive frequency of pompously patriotic ads for the defense industry, usually accompanied by deferential salutations to our men and women who are heroically sacrificing their lives in our defense. Do we really need all of that for our security?
I cite these events because I think they underline two very disturbing phenomena - the loss of U.S. international credibility, the growing U.S. international isolation.
There's something troubling about a condition in which one country alone, which has roughly 5 percent of the world's population, spends more than 50 percent of the world's defense budgets. There's something weird about it.
The Chinese are really good at diplomacy - and even at making their interlocutors feel very uncomfortable.
America's decline would set in motion tectonic shifts undermining the political stability of the entire Middle East.
The legitimacy of the leadership depends on what that country thinks of its leaders.
There may be circumstances in which damaging our relationship with countries over human rights is counterproductive and the benefits to human rights may be very small because of our limited capacity to enforce our stance. That was the dilemma the United States faced after Tiananmen Square.
What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War?
The fact of the matter is the Arab elites are more inclined to accommodate our wishes because of certain overlapping interests that are often financial. That is not the case with the Arab masses.
You go to Paris, or you go to Portugal, you go to Poland, and you ask, 'Who are you people?' They'll tell you, we're Portuguese, we're Spanish, we're Polish. Who are the people that are really European? The people in Brussels, in the E.U. bureaucracy. Europe has not been able to move to the level of patriotic identification with the concept.
Saddam Hussein was an odious dictator, but he was also a very effective opponent of Iran. He was also a very effective opponent of al-Qaida.
During the twentieth century, men fought on behalf of nationalism. Yet the wars they fought were also engendered by dislocations in world markets and by social revolution stimulated by the coming of the industrial age.
Both World War II and the subsequent Cold War gave America's involvement in world affairs a clear focus. The objectives of foreign policy were relatively easy to define, and they could be imbued with high moral content.
If the United States and China can accommodate each other on a broad range of issues, the prospects for stability in Asia will be greatly increased.
Americans must place greater emphasis on the more subtle dimensions of national power, such as innovation, education, the balance of force and diplomacy, and the quality of political leadership.
To his credit, Obama has undertaken a truly ambitious effort to redefine the United States' view of the world and to reconnect the United States with the emerging historical context of the twenty-first century. He has done this remarkably well.