Madeleine Albright Quotes

The West's involvement in the Middle East has been a disaster from the start... and finally, with President Trump, America is in a position to bring it to an end.

I know the war in Iraq is controversial in the States, but for us in the Middle East it has made a great and significant impact.

I profoundly do not believe that the United States could make things better in Syria by being there. And we have an evidentiary record of what happens when we're there - nearly a decade in Iraq.

Our safety at home and the cause of freedom abroad is largely contingent upon our success in Iraq.

The war in Iraq, clearly has not turned out in the way that was hoped.

There is very little hope that the United States or anyone else can do much to stabilize Iraq, Libya, Syria or Egypt. Stabilizing Iran, and bringing it back into the family of nations, is much more possible. That would be a 'win' for both sides.

The Iraq war was not necessary.

The central thesis of the American failure in Afghanistan - the one you'll hear from politicians and pundits and even scholars - was succinctly propounded by Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage: 'The war in Iraq drained resources from Afghanistan before things were under control'.

It's also much clearer how much damage the occupation of Iraq is doing to America's reputation and prestige around the world; and that's just starting now to hit home in the United States.

This wretched war in Iraq which we never should have started, we don’t seem to be able to win, and we don’t know how to get out of …

Right now, I have nothing against America, except for the fact that it opposes the Palestinian people, and is destroying Iraq. Apart from this, America and I agree on everything.

I support the current operational position and tactics in Iraq, but we’re in a bad place, we didn’t need to be there, and we shouldn’t do it again.

A U.S. invasion of Iraq could turn the whole region into a cauldron, and thus destroy the war on terrorism. A military campaign very likely would have to be followed by a large-scale, long-term military occupation.

The conflict in the Middle East is complex, multi-faceted, and unlikely to be resolved anytime soon.

The costly unilateralism of the younger Bush presidency led to a decade of war in the Middle East and the derailment of American foreign policy at large.

There is no question that what we are seeing - the horrible advance of ISIS - goes back, if you will, to the original sin of the invasion of Iraq.

The president has largely taken a hands-off approach in Syria and granted it as a legitimate sphere of interest to countries like Iran and like Russia. This is very bad policy, and it's going to lead to very dangerous consequences for our partners in the region, which is why so many of them are so opposed to U.S. policies.

The 2003 war in Iraq may be considered the greatest error in American policy since the Civil War. Its ramifications are earth-shattering and will impact us and our safety for generations. It may completely unravel the entire Middle East forever.

America went into Iraq. We shouldn't have gone into Iraq. We shouldn't have gotten out the way we got out. The world is a total mess.

Iraq may have been a preview of that, but it's still redeemable if we get out fast. In a war with Iran, we'll get dragged down for 20 or 30 years. The world will condemn us. We will lose our position in the world.

I think we've, again, got to be extremely careful; otherwise we'll misunderstand what's going on in Iraq and in Syria today. Of course, you can't say that those of us who removed Saddam in 2003 bear no responsibility for the situation in 2015.

The war in Iraq is a serious situation. It's - it involves the worst foreign policy mistake in the history of this country. So we should take everything serious. This is - we find ourselves in a very deep hole. We need to find a way to dig out of it.

We, Britain and Germany, can neither of us be happy about our handling of the Iraq war.

There's a certain amount of sympathy here for the Bush administration's problem, which is they would like to get rid of Saddam Hussein and they would like to have the Kurds autonomous.

I did more than anyone else in persuading the U.S. to get rid of Saddam.