Power Vacuum Quotes

America is ungovernable. He who serves a revolution ploughs the sea.

To leave positions of great responsibility and authority is to die a little.

Once abolish the God, and the Government becomes the God.

When government disappears, it's not as if paradise will take its place. When governments are gone, other interests will take their place.

Toppling secular dictators in the Middle East has only led to chaos and the rise of radical Islam.

Any time there is a coup you start with the assumption that the home government missed it …. Why should we know better than the government that’s being overthrown?

We are strong country with weak leadership.

Iraq lacks leaders capable of soothing sectarian wounds, and Western attempts to pick them or force their hand invite anti-imperialist backlash.

The politicians think the journalists have power, the journalists think bankers have power, bankers think lawyers have power. The truth is, nobody has power.

Anarchy is the stepping stone to absolute power.

The United States learned a big lesson. Its greatest danger in the world came not from large nations but from failed states.

Bashar al-Assad needs to be replaced, but he can't be replaced with another Bashar al-Assad.

I think a weakened, fragmented, chaotic Iraq, which could happen if this isn’t done carefully, is more dangerous in the long run than a contained Saddam is now.

Empires, essentially, create order. In their absence, you don't end up with lots of happy, little nation-states full of people sitting around campfires singing John Lennon's "Imagine." What you end up with is civil war, anarchy.

Leadership and power vacuums will be filled.

What would happen if we withdrew? Anarchy and confusion.

There was no authority with which diplomacy could deal.

Politics hates a vacuum. If it isn't filled with hope, someone will fill it with fear.

The complete lack of governance in huge swaths of the Middle East - that is the project of the American establishment.

Government destitute of energy, will ever produce anarchy.

With Germany conquered, the Kremlin checkmated, Japan converted, it became easier - safer - to peek around looking for someone to fear... and maybe do something about. Ideally, somebody far away, from a country about which almost nothing was known.

The son of the ruler is an orphan.

[In ancient Rome,] why did the senate after killing Caesar turn around and give the government to his nephew? Why did France after they got rid of the king and that whole system turn around and give it to Napoleon? It's the same thing with Germany and Hitler.

The choice is De Gaulle or anarchy.

An uncontrollable situation, in which there are no clearly defined spheres of authority, has come about in the country. Under these conditions, normal life is impossible.