Thomas Corothers Quotes

We have become a crusader state or a missionary democracy. I think the two are interchangeable.

I think that there is a limit on how far you can export democracy.

Neoconservatism is a blend of realism and idealism. We have the idealism of the liberals but we look at the reality of the world.

Promoting democracy is one goal of U. S. foreign policy dating back at least 100 years. But it has always been one goal of many, often negated and outweighed by other competing interests.

People the world over now see democracy promotion as a dishonest, dangerous cover for the protection of U. S. power and influence.

Obama is cutting back on the idea that we're going to have Jeffersonian democracy in Pakistan or anywhere else.

After installing friendly leaders in Iran and Guatemala, the United States lost interest in promoting democracy in either country.

People are constantly applying double standards. Take the United States, for example. Washington wants the whole world to admire the country for its democracy. Then the government sends out its army, in the name of this democracy, and leaves behind the kind of chaos we see in Iraq.

Wilson thought in terms of the whole world; Harding was for America first. And, finally, whereas Wilson wanted America to exert itself nobly, Harding wanted to give it a rest.

I don't know how you define 'neoconservatism,' but I think it's associated with trying to spread open political systems and democracy.

The United States should be devoting a larger percentage of its vast resources to making the world safe for capitalism and democracy ... the proper role of an imperial America is to establish these institutions where they are lacking, if necessary ... by military force. Imposing democracy on all the world's "rogue states" would not push the U. S. Defense budget much above 5 percent of GDP... establishing the rule of law in such countries would pay a long run dividend as their trade revised and expanded.

I don’t think America wants democracies in the Middle East. They wouldn’t be nearly as friendly to us

Part of the American administration is not religious. They are neither Evangelists nor Jews, but they have a new ideological theory regarding international policy. They are called the neo-cons. Fifteen years ago, the American intellectuals used to call them crazy, but now they are surprised to find that those crazy people are ruling America, and controlling the entire world. They say: We do not want America to be the leader of the world. We want it to rule and Americanize the world…. The neo-cons are identical to the Nazis.

I don't think it's the job of the United States to build democracies from whole cloth. That's Wilsonianism to me of the most crazy kind.

We cannot impose democracy where it has no constituency.

No idea holds greater sway in the minds of educated Americans that the belief that it is possible to democratize governments anytime and anywhere under any circumstances .

We have no constitutional authority to police the world or involve ourselves in nation building, in making the world safe for our style of democracy. Our founders advised against it and the early presidents followed that advice.

Inviting an invasion by foreigners and instigating one against them are two sides of the same neoconservative coin.

War on terrorism reflects, in my view, a rather narrow and extremist vision of foreign policy for a superpower and for a great democracy with genuinely idealistic traditions.

We've gone too far in thinking we can re-create an American democratic paradise in the Middle East.

The 'freedom agenda' of George W. Bush's second inaugural was a noble concept - but in practice, it offered ignoble results.

While American interests in the Middle East must obviously be protected, America's credibility to support democracy for everyone everywhere is crucial.

The U.S. is ruled by private interest groups and by the neoconservative ideology that history has chosen the U.S. as the 'exceptional and indispensable' country with the right and responsibility to impose its will on the world.

Advocating democracy has, by other people, often been taken as a form of imperialism, and not without some justification. So the important thing in a democracy is that it doesn't necessarily have to agree with what America's interests are, and it doesn't necessarily have to be serving American interests.

Pundits are used to analyzing the gap between what our ideals suggest and what our security interests require.