Quotes for All
Just as certain Cold War binaries were collapsing, new binaries of Sunni versus Shia or Arab versus Kurd were being created by the new occupation force. It’s the corruption of that moment that I am really interested in. Elliott Colla
In the 20th century, the Muslim world created a vision of religious nationalism. Turkey, for example, had to be ethnically Turkish. Kurds, Armenians, other minorities didn’t have a place in such a vision of a nation-state. Feisal Abdul Rauf
It is important to understand that there are two separate battles taking place in Iraq: there is the political rift between the Sunnis, Shia and the Kurds and there is a foreign extremist group – ISIS – trying to take advantage of the political environment through violence. If the Iraqis can resolve their political differences, … Read more
There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that Saddam Hussein had and used significant weapons of mass destruction on his own people, both the Kurds and the Iranians. Curt Weldon
This current government in Iraq has never fulfilled the commitments it made to form a unity government with the Kurds, the Sunnis and the Shia. We have worked hard with them within the confines of our ability to do that but we can’t dictate to them. Chuck Hagel
The Iraquis can see it. The Kurds can feel it. The jihadists are counting on it. Charles Krauthammer
We seem to be afraid to give the Kurds weaponry. We like to send it for some strange reason through Baghdad, and then they only get a tenth of it. Benjamin Carson
As far as the command centers are concerned in Raqqa and to a lesser degree Mosul, cut those off. Do the same kind of thing that we did with Sinjar , working with our embedded special forces with the Kurds, shut off the supply route, soften them up, then we go in with specials ops … Read more
If you go into Hasakah province in northeast Syria, that’s an area that’s as big as Lebanon. It’s controlled by the Kurds, the Christians and the moderate Sunnis. And there are airstrips and hotels. You could settle a lot of people there.All we would have to do is be willing to provide them with some … Read more
At the end of the day…if your army won’t fight, it’s because they don’t trust their incompetent, corrupt generals, they don’t trust each other. This is an enduring civil war between the Shia, the Sunni, and the Kurds. So I don’t think we’ve got any options and we’d be ill-advised to start bombing where we … Read more