Quotes from Zbigniew Brzezinski

To increase the zone of peace is to build the inner core of a stable international zone.

We should be therefore supporting a larger Europe, and in so doing we should strive to expand the zone of peace and prosperity in the world which is the necessary foundation for a stable international system in which our leadership could be fruitfully exercised.

The United States wants to be part of the solution to its problems and not, in part, the maker of their problems.

The mistakes of the Iraq war are not only tactical and strategic, but historical. It is essentially a war of colonialism, attempted in the post-colonial age.

Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.

The external Soviet empire lasted 45 years. It is shattered, beyond redemption or repair.

Can we really mobilize support, even of friends, when we tell them that if you are not with us you are against us?

Moderation and bipartisan consensus go hand in hand.

I think it is essential that America does not stumble into a stupid war with Iran.

You go to Paris, or you go to Portugal, you go to Poland, and you ask, 'Who are you people?' They'll tell you, we're Portuguese, we're Spanish, we're Polish. Who are the people that are really European? The people in Brussels, in the E.U. bureaucracy. Europe has not been able to move to the level of patriotic identification with the concept.

Sovereignty is a word that is used often but it has really no specific meaning. Sovereignty today is nominal. Any number of countries that are sovereign are sovereign only nominally and relatively.

The Chinese are really good at diplomacy - and even at making their interlocutors feel very uncomfortable.

Look: I don't want to live with a nuclear Iran. I would like to make it uncomfortable for them to seek it.

Pessimism about America's future tends to underestimate its capacity for self-renewal.

America's decline would set in motion tectonic shifts undermining the political stability of the entire Middle East.

We don't have a public that really understands the world anymore, and in the age of complexity, that problem becomes much more difficult.

If the United States and China can accommodate each other on a broad range of issues, the prospects for stability in Asia will be greatly increased.

There may be circumstances in which damaging our relationship with countries over human rights is counterproductive and the benefits to human rights may be very small because of our limited capacity to enforce our stance. That was the dilemma the United States faced after Tiananmen Square.

Neither the United States nor Israel has the capacity to impose a unilateral solution in the Middle East.

The Soviet Union's termination, which brought to an end the bipolar world, ushered in an era of U.S. hegemony. Hegemony, however, should not be confused with omnipotence. Hegemony is not omnipotence but is certainly preponderance.

If we can deter the Soviet Union, if we can deter North Korea, why on earth can't we deter Iran?

Hard power makes sense under some circumstances. But there's not a universal solution to global problems.

There's no point considering something which is very unrealistic.

The problem with the Iranian regime, of course is, one, its unsettling effects on the Sunnis, particularly Saudi Arabia, and, secondly, its potential threat to Israel.