Diplomacy
Page 7
- President Obama hasn't been elected by the American people in order to be pleasant to Russia. And your humble servant hasn't been elected by the people of Russia to be pleasant to someone either…We work, we argue about some issues. We are human. Sometimes one of us gets vexed. But I would like to repeat once again that global mutual interests form a good basis for finding a joint solution to our problems.
- I don’t really understand exactly why people regard this as being different, if you blow up someone with a bomb versus killing them with gas. Historically, the reason why countries banded together to prevent the use of gas attacks is because, among other things, it ended up being used inadvertently against your own troops….at this point the evidence seems to be that there’s only four countries in the world that have chemical weapons. We happen to be one of them. In fact, arguably, the United States has the largest stockpile of chemical weapons in the world. So, on the basis of that, I’m not sure that were in the best moral position to be indicating to others what to do about chemical weapons.
- One thing that is perfectly clear to me in my district, and I think is true in many other districts from speaking to other members, is that there is no desire, no desire, on the part of people to be the world's policeman.
- But for us, in Syria, we have principles. We'll do anything to prevent the region from another crazy war. It's not only Syria. Because it will start in Syria...
- The first question that they should ask themself, what do wars give America? ...No political gain, no economic gain, no good reputation. United States is at all low...the credibility is at...all-time low. So this war is against the interests of the United States.
- How can you talk about what happened if you don't have evidences? We're not like the American administration. We're not social media administration or government. We are the government that deal with reality - when we have evidence.
- The well of public opinion has been well and truly poisoned by the Iraq episode.
- Dictating to dictators doesn’t work; they are congenitally delusional about their own indispensability.
- Geopolitics is all about leverage. We cannot make ourselves safer abroad unless we change our behavior at home.
- We should not anticipate that every time countries come together that we are doing some revolutionary thing. Instead of hitting home runs, sometimes we're going to hit singles.
- Interventionism is inextricable from the American idea. If the United States retreats into isolationism, it ceases to be itself ? a nation dedicated, however much it falls short, to a universalist ideal of freedom.
- Europe is not a choice, it is a necessity, but it needs to be rethought, refounded.