John Bolton Quotes

Four years ago, I promised to end the war in Iraq. We did. I promised to refocus on the terrorists who actually attacked us on 9/11. We have. We've blunted the Taliban's momentum in Afghanistan, and in 2014, our longest war will be over. A new tower rises above the New York skyline, al Qaeda is on the path to defeat, and Osama bin Laden is dead.

Look, I think the public generally understands that what's at stake in Afghanistan is American security, number one.

Now that Washington once again has a tangible adversary -- variously described as ‘freedom-hating terrorists,’ ‘Salafist jihadis,’ or ‘Islamofascists’ -- U.S. leaders have convinced the American public that foreign policy is an ‘us-versus-them’ contact sport in which the primary tactics are military and coercive

… the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.

Early withdrawal from Iraq would result in unarguably, defeat and humiliation for the United States. There's no question. We would be defeated by definition. We would be humiliated in that defeat.

If we have Osama bin Laden in our sights and the Pakistani government is unable or unwilling to take them out, then, I think that we have to act and we will take them out. We will kill bin Laden. We will crush al Qaeda. That has to be our biggest national security priority.

Ironically, many of these people, including Osama bin Laden and the mujahedeen, were, in fact, nourished by the United States in the early eighties in its efforts to drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan.

A dangerous idea is gaining currency within a segment of the American populace. If a person does not support the United States-British bombing expedition in Afghanistan, it means that he or she backs Osama bin Laden and the Al-Qaeda

By invading Iraq, the President has undermined the War on Terrorism.

We have to live with the world that we helped to create.

Our calculus with the Drone Program is very simple. Kill them before they kill you!

The United States does not negotiate with terrorists.

The problem was you didn’t have an approach against Al Qaeda because you didn’t have an approach against Afghanistan. And you didn’ have an approach against Afghanistan because you didn’t have an approach against Pakistan. And until we could get that right, we didn’t have a policy.

The United States is as weak as the Soviet Union. If enough pressure is applied to them, they will pull out of the Middle East.

Drones have turned Al Qaeda’s command and training structures into a liability, forcing the group to choose between having no leaders and risking dead leaders.

America’s war in Afghanistan will come to a responsible end.

On September 4, 2001, the Principals Committee met in the White House Situation Room. CIA Director George Tenet and the DOD leadership both spoke out against the use of armed Predators tp get bin Laden and the Al Qaeda leadership. They were not overruled [by President George W. Bush]. A week later we were attacked [on September 11].

Who was behind the attack on America of 2011? 15 of the 18 terrorists were from Saudi Arabia and the ideology that they followed was from Saudi Arabia …. Saudi Arabia has supported the Taliban and Al Qaeda before the United States was attacked. Most of their funds came from Saudi Arabian individuals. But more important, the ideology that they followed came from Saudi Arabia.Who was behind the attack on America of 2011? 15 of the 18 terrorists were from Saudi Arabia and the ideology that they followed was from Saudi Arabia …. Saudi Arabia has supported the Taliban and Al Qaeda before the United States was attacked. Most of their funds came from Saudi Arabian individuals. But more important, the ideology that they followed came from Saudi Arabia.

If U.S. occupation is a primary recruitment tool and what inspires Islamic terrorists, are many of our current efforts overseas actually fighting terrorism and diminishing the threat?

I watched the Bush administration overreact to the Clinton administration, who believed they did too much nation building, sustaining other countries, and that's why we never put the commitment on Afghanistan and Iraq that should have been in there under their policy leadership.

Trump himself has not laid out a clear agenda on the national security issues that are the most pressing for the United States, from the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan to the deepening Syrian civil war to the fight against ISIS in Iraq and Syria and the flexing of Russian muscles under President Vladimir Putin.

Osama bin Laden is gone. The war in Iraq is over. Afghanistan is coming to a close.

Reasonable people can disagree about the authorities the NSA should have, when it's appropriate for the CIA to use drone strikes, and how assertive U.S. foreign policy and intelligence should be.

When the United States first went into Afghanistan in 2001, it devastated the Taliban and Al Qaeda in a matter of weeks using only a few hundred C.I.A. and Special Operations personnel, backed by American air power. Later, when the United States transitioned to conventional Pentagon stability operations, this success was reversed.

Let me just say that I'm the only candidate in this race now that has any firsthand experience fighting terrorism. And both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, I think, have proven in different ways that they're unprepared for that challenge.