George W. Bush Quotes

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

Since President Bush took office in 2001, this Congress has supported an agenda of democracy, freedom and expansion of rights for all peoples throughout the world.

In the end, it's a good investment for America to be involved in helping people get democratic governance - not to take over their country - but to help people be free. And that is an investment that will pay off in the future.

The paradox of American policy in the Middle East — promoting democracy on the assumption it will bring countries closer to the West — is that almost everywhere there are free elections, the American-backed side tends to lose.

America's foreign policy supports freedom, democracy, and human dignity for all mankind, and we make no apologies for it. The opportunity society that we want for ourselves we also want for others, not because we're imposing our system on others but because those opportunities belong to all people as God-given birthrights and because by promoting democracy and economic opportunity we make peace more secure.

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.

The cornerstone of our policy in that part of the world is to help democracies. Lebanon's a democracy. We want the Siniora government to succeed.

We have to have a more realistic foreign policy and not a utopian one where we say, oh, we're going to spread freedom and democracy, and everybody in the Middle East is going to love us. They are not going to love us.

Conservatism, except when it is expressed as pure idealism, takes into account reality, and the reality of the situation is that missions abroad to effect regime change in countries without a bill of rights or democratic tradition are terribly arduous. This isn't to say that the war is wrong, or that history will judge it to be wrong. But it is absolutely to say that conservatism implies a certain submission to reality; and this war has an unrealistic frank and is being conscripted by events.

The rights of human beings also constitute America's vital interests.

Israel and America are the only two grievances which may be freely expressed in Arab counties.

That should be a goal of U. S. policy—not to get along with dictators.

Neoconservatives habitually overstate America’s ability to export democracy.

It is overly optimistic to think that we can take a country that has emerged from under a totalitarian regime with its institutions of civil society and create a beacon of democracy within five years. If we try to transform Iraq into a democracy, we will need more and more troops over time because we will have to quell nationalistic revolts.

American interests dictate that we teach other peoples to govern themselves.

Our Nation can be strong abroad only if it is strong at home. And we know that the best way to enhance freedom in other lands is to demonstrate here that our democratic system is worthy of emulation.

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.

To back away from France would be to undermine the cause of republicanism in America

The West interfered into Japan’s affairs …and managed to save Japan from tyranny. Today, Japan is regarded as a model of democracy, of liberties and all the advantages that the West has produced.

As American freemen we can not but sympathize in all efforts to extend the blessings of civil and political liberty, but at the same time we are warned by the admonitions of history and the voice of our own beloved Washington to abstain from entangling alliances with foreign nations. In all disputes between conflicting governments it is our interest not less than our duty to remain strictly neutral

It was the example of the United States that toppled most of the kingdoms and empires of the world. We did this by asserting the greatness of the human spirit.

It is important to remember there still exist other forms of government in the world today, and that dozens of foreign countries still long for a democracy such as ours to be imposed on them..

The United States does not seek to impose our way of life on others.... We are not here to lecture. We are not here to tell others what to do.

Israel is a lighthouse and the only democracy in a dark and tyrannical region. It's part of us, of our European identity.

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