Strategic Advantage Quotes
Nixon staff assistant Chuck Coulson used a variant of this quotation. See {628753}.
Nguyen Ai Quoc was early pseudonym.
He was referring to attacking the Barbary States. The Barbary Pirates had an incredible extortion racket going in the Mediterranean. If nations would pay them an annual sum each year, they would not attack and seize merchant ships of that country and sell the ships and goods while holding the sailors for ransom. See {640846}.
There was a major revolution ongoing in Syria with different Arab Muslim factions slaughtering each other. The government side was particularly vicious shelling and using poison gas unarmed civilian enclaves in areas where the regime was not popular. Many nations called for humanitarian intervention. Netanyahu opposed any interventions while other politicians like President and former prime minister Shimon Peres disagreed and thought that Israel and other nations should intervene on humanitarian grounds and prevent the Assad government from butchering its own non-combatant civilians.
He was a strong believer in surprise attack and preemption.