The idea of abstract power only exists for academics, not in real life.

Oil is much too important a commodity to be left in the hands of the Arabs.

To have striven so hard, to have molded a public personality out of so amorphous an identity, to have sustained that superhuman effort only to end with every weakness disclosed and every error compounding the downfall--that was a fate of biblical proportions. Evidently the Deity would not tolerate the presumption that all can be manipulated; an object lesson of the limits of human presumption was necessary.

You can't make war in the Middle East without Egypt and you can't make peace without Syria.

Diplomats operate through deadlock, which is the way by which two sides can test each other's determination. Even if they have egos for it few heads of government have the time to resolve stalemates, their meetings are too short and the demands of protocol too heavy.

Intelligence is not all that important in the exercise of power, and is often, in point of fact, useless.

To be an enemy of America can be dangerous, but to be a friend is fatal