Michael Scheuer Quotes

Saudi Arabia needs friends. We are in a war in Yemen, in a confrontation with Iran, so we need friends like Canada, Europe.

My time as editor has been overlapped by a crisis - a prolonged, labyrinthine, tragic, seemingly non-ending crisis - that involves the prehistory of 9/11, 9/11, Iraq, Afghanistan, fraught histories between the United States and almost everyone.

What Ottawa and Washington used to think about Turkey or Iran was not very important because we really didn't think much about either, but now what we think about them is extremely important - to ourselves and to many other peoples.

Great powers engage.

The Syrian Intervention was aimed not only at strengthening Assad's position but at forcing the United States to deal with Moscow on a more even footing.

The interference of Iran affects us all.

At the end of the day, Americans know that the ones they really can trust, in all the Middle East, it's only Israel.

Russians in top positions always told me, 'We don't want to deal with our allies the way that the Americans dealt with Mubarak,' which is a very live example in the minds of many.

I'm no apologist for Russia or the Assad regime, but actually, this has been staring us in the face for a number of years now, and I think it's time to turn a page and accept reality. Our strategy - if that is the right word - failed miserably, and Russia's with Iran has been successful.

No one gives a damn what Iran thinks on any significant issue. The only reason Iran is at the big boys' table is because of their nuclear weapons program.

[Vladimir] Putin took a look at them [Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama] and said, I can push these guys around the world. These are children compared to me. Donald Trump is not a child.

I don't think he should make foreign policy on the basis of peak,but I don't think it can be overstated that Israel has been an embattled democracy that has enjoyed the bipartisan and overwhelming support of Americans. It has been a moral force.

I think what we're seeing is that they're testing each other. Russia is testing us, we're testing them, it's part of just, you know, the new president Donald Trump coming in and President Vladimir Putin having to figure out his place.

The Bush administration has apparently approved a plan to oust Saddam Hussein. I think that's President Bush's Father's Day gift to his Dad.

The ideals and the values of the United States inspired the entire world. I don't think any of us can say that our standing in the world now, the way children around the world look at the United States, is the same. And part of what we need to do is to send a message to the world that we are going to invest in issues like education, we are going to invest in issues that relate to how ordinary people are able to live out their dreams. And that is something that I'm going to be committed to as president of the United States.

Whether splendidly isolated or dangerously isolated, I will not now debate; but for my part, I think splendidly isolated, because the isolation of England comes from her superiority.

I think too many of my Republican friends are into perpetual warfare in the Middle East. And that scares the bejesus out of me.

America has to stand by our allies. I think the tension that existed between Israel and the United States was very unfortunate.

I also think regime change in Syria is a bad idea. And that's an ongoing question. It's one of the things I like about Donald Trump, one of the reasons I endorsed him is he thinks regime change is a mistake. But John Bolton thinks completely the opposite. They are diametric opposites.

If George Bush [Jr.] decided he was going to turn the troops loose on Syria and Iran after that he would last in office for about 15 minutes. In fact if President Bush were to try that now even I would think that he ought to be impeached. You can't get away with that sort of thing in this democracy.

We had people coming to our Foreign Relations Committee and saying, "Oh, we need to arm the allies of Al Qaida." They are still saying this. It is a crazy notion. This is the biggest debate we should be having is is regime change a good idea; has it been a good idea.

We did not think that [Egyptian President] Nasser wanted war. The two divisions he sent to Sinai on May 14 would not have been sufficient to launch an offensive against Israel. He knew it and we knew it.

I think that President George W. Bush was ahead of most of his government, in realizing that Putin was not the person we thought he was.

[Hillary] Clinton is too much into regime change and a little bit too aggressive without knowing what the unintended consequences might be. Yes, we could get rid of Assad tomorrow, but that would create another political vacuum that would benefit ISIS.

The big issue is whether the United States will succeed in its venture of reshaping the Middle East. It is not clear to me that using military force is the way to do it. We should not have gone into Iraq. But we have.