Elliott Abrams Quotes
-
The courage of the Syrian protesters is remarkable, for they face prison, torture, or death every time they lift a banner.
-
Needless to say, if the Arab-Israeli conflict is about interstate disputes and the need to resolve the future of the West Bank and Gaza, it can be solved; if it is a religious conflict, nothing but violence is ahead.
-
President Obama has never summarized the Obama Doctrine with such clarity, but here is what it would look like: 'I will undertake any military attack against our enemies, regardless of the risks and collateral damage, so long as it is over by the time I have to announce it.'
-
Two presidents pursued human rights policies that were serious and effective: Reagan and George W. Bush. They understood that American support for human rights activists is a moral imperative for us and also makes the world safer for us.
-
First impressions matter. Experts say we size up new people in somewhere between 30 seconds and two minutes.
-
Terrorists that kill Americans don't get released.
-
A great nation like the United States has many and varied interests, and we need both to do business with tyrants and to engage constantly in multilateral diplomacy.
-
Being an Arab leader has its rewards: the suite at the Waldorf-Astoria during the United Nations General Assembly, travel in your own plane, plenty of cash, even job security - whether kings, sheiks or presidents, with or without elections, most serve for life.
-
The Egyptian military and the government of Israel have long had a common interest in maintaining order and fighting terrorism in Sinai.
-
The notion that public service requires men and women of good character now seems quaint.
-
Peace in the Middle East has been on the Obama administration's mind from the beginning. Two days after his inauguration, the president traveled to the State Department to announce the appointment of George Mitchell as his Middle East peace negotiator.
-
In critical ways, Obama has reversed not just Bush policy but every president's approach to the world since the Second World War, save for that of his soulmate Jimmy Carter.
-
The truce brokered by Egypt between Israel and Hamas depends, above all, on the borders between Egypt, Gaza and Israel.
-
Every Arab 'republic' has been a republic of fear, but only Saddam Hussein's Iraq surpassed the Assads' Syria in number of victims.
-
As the Palestinian leadership never seems to pay any penalty for its words, America's seriousness about the peace process is in doubt.
-
American power remains today what it was in the Second World War and the Cold War: the greatest force for freedom in the world.
-
In Iran, there is no freedom of the press, no freedom of speech, no independent judiciary, no free elections. There is no freedom of religion - not even for Shiites, who are forced by Iran's theocracy to adhere to one narrow set of official rules.
-
Turkey's solidarity with Hamas is not, of course, based on Arab nationalism, which as a non-Arab nation it does not support. It is instead based on a definition of the Mideast conflict as one between Jews and Muslims, precisely the position of Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda.
-
On taking office in 2009, U.S. President Barack Obama put Israeli settlements at the center of U.S. policy in the Middle East.
-
Enlightened despots are mythical creatures; real despots seem more interested in stealing money or installing their sons after them.
-
Even today, when the Obama administration has liberalized travel to Cuba - and failed to reverse that liberalization when Alan Gross was imprisoned - there are limits.
-
The U.A.E. is a firm ally of the United States and deserves better treatment than it received in the Dubai Ports World fiasco in 2006.
-
Huge numbers of embassy cables are labeled 'unclassified' or 'limited official use' and deal with mundane matters.
-
There's been an Israeli position, which is 'We love Mubarak,' that permeates their whole society, the political class. That certainly differs from many of us in the pro-Israel camp in the United States.