Quotes from Richard N. Haass

Middle East history is replete with examples of missed and lost chances to make peace.

On occasion, terrorists will succeed despite our best efforts. That is part of the legacy of 9/11. But 9/11 also shows us that while terrorists can destroy, they are unable to create.

There's a pattern in Bush 43's presidency of being attracted to the big and the bold, and my whole reading of him is that he was instinctively uncomfortable with what you might call a modulated foreign policy - a foreign policy of adjustment, of degree.

The vote in the United Kingdom in favor of leaving the E.U. attested to the loss of elite influence.

The United States is not just another country. It has more capacity and potential to influence the world than any other country - and no other country has the resources and mindset to lead a world that is not on autopilot.

In a world in which the United States does less, whatever set of calculations, other countries will tend to calculate - to move in one of two ways. Either they will assuage or, to use a more loaded term, appease the strongest power in the neighborhood with all the consequences of that, or they will determine to take matters into their own hands.

Campaigning and governing are two very different activities, and there is no reason to assume that how Trump conducted the former will dictate how he approaches the latter.

It is neither feasible nor desirable for Europe to establish itself as a geopolitical equal or competitor of the U.S.

How can we pressure China on North Korea if China's one of the two largest holders of American debt?

There is no way to know for certain what accounts for North Korean decisionmaking, given how closed a country it is.

We all have some basic obligation to one another.

The United States emerged from the Cold War with unprecedented absolute and relative power. It was truly first among unequals.

The abolition of the presidential term limit and President Xi Jinping's concentration of power have come as an unwelcome surprise to many.

In a global world, what happens within one country can all too easily affect others.

When great powers fade, as they inevitably must, it's normally for one of two reasons. Some powers exhaust themselves through overreach abroad, underinvestment at home, or a mixture of the two. This was the case for the Soviet Union. Other powers lose their privileged position with the emergence of new, stronger powers.

Americans were happy to buy vast quantities of relatively inexpensive Chinese manufactured goods, demand for which provided jobs for the tens of millions of Chinese who moved from poor agricultural areas to new or rapidly expanding cities.

You cannot be effective if those who work for you are not. So building their effectiveness ought to be a priority.

I am confident in saying that Oberlin did more for me than vice versa. I took a fantastic class in religion, which led me to archaeology, which got me to the Middle East, which led me to international relations, which launched me on my career.

Vietnam was not a war of choice the United States had to fight. It was clearly not central.

Living with a nuclear North Korea could give its leaders the confidence to act more aggressively versus South Korea. It could also, over time, drive both South Korea and Japan, as well as countries farther afield such as Vietnam, to reconsider their non-nuclear postures. The stability of a critical region of the world would suddenly be in doubt.

Indeed, in foreign policymaking, inconsistency is often a virtue. I speak not of principles but of policy.

The benefits of freer trade, such as job creation, lower inflation, and greater consumer choice, are often invisible or only partly visible.

The decision to attack Iraq in March 2003 was discretionary; it was a war of choice.