Politicians don't want democracy here in America, why would they want it in the Middle East?
Philanthropy, although it's tiny compared to the government, it's 2% of the US economy, which is the largest percentage, other than the Middle East.
I'm dealing with Mexico, I'm dealing with Argentina. We were dealing in this case with Mike Flynn. All this information gets put into The Washington Post and The New York Times, and I'm saying, what's going to happen when I'm dealing on the Middle East? We've got to stop it. That's why it's a criminal penalty.
Persia is very different from the Arab Middle East in terms of architecture and language. Even though we think of them as one big Middle Eastern area, in truth, Persia's quite distinct.
I mean, our disaster in Libya also unleashed enormous amounts of armaments. We are the world's leading arms dealer, arming all sides everywhere. And have we made the Middle East a more secure place? We're only making it more desperate, more catastrophic and more violent.
Like most Americans, I hope and wish is that there is a peaceful resolution to the Middle East conflict. Unfortunately, there are extremists on both sides who oppose a peaceful resolution and instead choose violence.
A huge amount of what goes on in the Middle East has to do with people being fed really bad information.
When we empower Iran, then get ready for more unrest and more murder and more violence in the Middle East.
The truth is, about the Middle East is, had there been no oil there, it would be like Africa. Nobody is threatening to intervene in Africa.
It is difficult for anyone to tell you what is going to happen. [Middle East] is an area where everything is on the brink of explosion.
I do not believe that we must maintain a bloated military budget which spends almost as much as the rest of the world combined and may lead us to perpetual warfare in the Middle East.
I think Syria is in a particularly sensitive geopolitical position in terms of the politics of the Middle East.
The problem is that so many of them are not getting told. This is a massive problem, not just in the Middle East but for places from Africa to Afghanistan. There are millions of stories out there, millions of potential Booksellers of Kabul or Valentino Achak Dengs.
I'm not naive. I know perfectly well that there isn't a single Arab or Muslim in the world who would say: There has to be a Jewish state in the Middle East.
I was a news reporter for 16 years, seven of them a foreign correspondent in the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. Perhaps the most useful equipment I acquired in that time is a lack of preciousness about the act of writing. A reporter must write. There must be a story. The mot juste unarriving? Tell that to your desk.
So much of our attention is trained on the Middle East these days, but we cannot ignore East Asia.
The world is a total mess. Take a look at what's happening with Aleppo. Take a look what's happening in Mosul. Take a look what's going on in the Middle East. And people are fleeing and they're going into Europe and all over the place. The world is a mess.
There's nothing that the United States can do. Nothing that would change systems in the Middle East, nothing the United States can do that would make the Middle East a better place.
No deal means a greater chance of more war in the Middle East.
Even before 911 I was gripped by a sense of dread: our lack of criticism about what we were doing in the Middle East - the slagging off of a whole religious tradition.