Paul Craig Roberts Quotes

The reality in Iraq is that we are creating new terrorists and severely damaging the public impression of the United States in the Muslim world.

It was not in our interest to enter Iraq in the first place.

Afghanistan is an expensive disaster for America.

The actions of the terrorist organizations, Hezbollah, in Lebanon, and Hamas, in Gaza, against Israel are unconscionable. Instead of working towards peace, these terrorist organizations have chosen to perpetuate the violence.

The U.S. and Britain are incapable of controlling all of Iraq.

The problem is that the Iraqi people are facing atrocities from both sides - Zarqawi and also the American troops at times. The Zarqawi groups uses car bombs, the Americans use other bombs. You also know what they do in the prisons.

This war on terrorism is going to continue for an indefinite period of time.

At least 23,000 civilians have also died in the Iraqi killing field and the U.S. is stuck in a quagmire.

I also argued before the war that the administration was underestimating Arab nationalism and Iraqi nationalism, that it was not going to be as easy to rule Iraq as they thought.

America faced its first hostage crisis in the Middle East… Thomas Jefferson was President and over 100 Americans were being held hostage by Arabs from the Barbary Coast and the Arabs believed that if they were killed, they would go immediately to heaven. 220 years later America is still facing the same problem.

When it is over, if it is over, this war will have horrible consequences. Instead of having one Bin Laden, we will have 100 Bin Ladens.

The Middle East conflict has become the locus of the final war between Muslims and the West

You can’t separate the struggle against the Baathists (of Iraq) from the struggle against global terrorism.

The idea that we could live with another 20 years of stagnation in the Middle East that breeds this radicalism and breeds terrorism is, I think, just unacceptable- especially after September 11th.

The main reason the Americans have come to Iraq is to put down the Shiite people—to prevent us from setting up a Shiite religious government.

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

Iraq is a terrible place. Some fool American is going to come out here and try to redesign it

We cannot use force everywhere that a radical ideology takes root.

There's a reason ISIS exists, which is because we've invaded countries, and they hate the Western world. I'm not forgiving them; I'm just saying there's a reason.

I think it's a huge mistake. I think regime change in Syria, and this is what - I've been saying this for several years now. In 2013 when we first went in, I said, you are going to give arms to the allies of al Qaida, to radical jihadists? That's crazy.

Iraq is not about oil.

I think the suffering, violence and cruelty and Guantanamo and the rest is going to go on and on in Iraq.

I still agree with the invasion of Iraq. I don't agree with most of the decisions that accompanied it.

I consider Bush's decision to call for a war against terrorism a serious mistake. He is elevating these criminals to the status of war enemies, and one cannot lead a war against a network if the term war is to retain any definite meaning.

So a truthful assessment of how America is doing in the war on terror as a result of President Bush's war on Iraq is that we have been set back by decades.