Iran is not an enemy of ISIS; they have a lot to gain from the turmoil that ISIS creates.

Basically, Islamic State is a combined al Qaeda and Lebanese Hezbollah on steroids, destabilizing the region, dissolving borders/changing the political geography in the Mid-east, and hardening political positions that make Mid-east peace-building more remote by the day.

I consider ISIS nothing more than an excuse for Iran to continue its mischief.

We all hoped in 2001 that we could put in place an Afghan government under President Karzai that would be able to control the country, make sure al-Qaeda didn’t come back, and make sure the Taliban wasn’t resurging. It didn’t work out.

The Arab population of Palestine are victims of genocidal actions; their lands are confiscated or deprived of water supplies in the semi-desert areas, and their homes are destroyed with heavy wrecking equipment.

Iran is not a nation-state; it’s a revolutionary cause devoted to mayhem.

When Britain and the U.S. invaded Iraq, it was with the reasonable expectation that it was going to increase the threat of terror, as it has.

I think the Iranians are clearly determined to have a nuclear program. And we have to assume that with a nuclear program they have the capability and the will to create a nuclear weapon.

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

Stability is when the U.K. and U.S. invade a country and impose the regime of their choice.

I do not believe we will have a war with Iran.

Israel is following policies which maximise its security threats… policies which choose expansion over security… policies which lead to their moral degradation, their isolation, their delegitimation, as they call it now, and very likely ultimate destruction. That’s not impossible.

The global importance of the Middle East is that it keeps the Far East and the Near East from encroaching on each other.

The truth of the matter is that Iran is a cancer.

The Iranian regime, in my mind, is the single most enduring threat to stability and peace in the Middle East.

We should not look at terrorism from the nameplates – which group they belong to, what is their geographical location, who are the victims. These individual groups or names will keep changing. Today you are looking at the Taliban or ISIS; tomorrow you might be looking at another name.

The Iranians have shot down drones. They tried to destroy the Saudi oil fields. They tried to storm our embassy. So, when my Democratic friends say we need appeasement, well appeasement hasn’t worked. And I think that we’ve learned, with respect to Iran, that weakness invites the wolves.

Israel is a pretty crazy state.

As we speak, Iran has rolled back its nuclear program, shipped out its uranium stockpile, and the world has avoided another war.

Is the Iranian record of intervention and terror worse than that of the U.S.?

Iran has little capacity to deploy force. Its strategic doctrines are defensive, designed to deter invasion long enough for diplomacy to set it.

NATO has been a thread throughout my life.

No one doubts that innocent men, women and children have been the victims of chemical weapons attacks in Syria. And there’s no doubt who is responsible for this heinous use of chemical weapons in Syria: the Syrian regime.

The Iranian government is undoubtedly a severe danger to its own population, but not beyond that.

The nation that secures control of the air will ultimately control the world.

In Egypt, on the eve of Tahrir Square, there was a major poll which found that overwhelmingly – 80-90%, numbers like that – Egyptians regarded the main threats they face as the U.S. and Israel. They don’t like Iran – Arabs generally don’t like Iran – but they didn’t consider it a threat.

The invasion of Iraq, particularly, gave a big shot in the arm to the jihadi extremists.

Why should Iran have a deterrent strategy? Well, it’s surrounded by hostile enemies. Both of its borders have been under occupation by a hostile superpower, the United States, which is constantly violating the U.N. charter by leaving open what they call the saying, ‚all options are open‘ – meaning the threat of war.

In a summer marked by instability in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, I know the world also took notice of the small American city of Ferguson, Missouri – where a young man was killed, and a community was divided. So yes, we have our own racial and ethnic tensions.

Unlike Iran, Israel refuses to allow inspections at all, refuses to join the Non-Proliferation Treaty, has hundreds of nuclear weapons, has advanced delivery systems.

Israel will not tolerate Iran developing nuclear power, even if Iran claims it is for peaceful purposes. If there is an attack, oil prices will go through the roof.

Pakistan will never be able to match the Indian militarily, and the effort to do so is taking an immense toll on the society.

There has come into being a kind of a Shia belt from Tehran through Baghdad to Beirut. And this gives Iran the opportunity to reconstruct the ancient Persian Empire – this time under the Shia label.

Pakistan is not a unified country.

The Egyptians could run to Egypt, the Syrians into Syria. The only place we could run was into the sea, and before we did that we might as well fight.

Suppose I criticise Iran. What impact does that have? The only impact it has is in fortifying those who want to carry out policies I don’t agree with, like bombing.

Israelis would mostly breathe a sigh of relief if Palestinians were to disappear.

Today, India is a nuclear weapons state.

No one gives a damn what Iran thinks on any significant issue. The only reason Iran is at the big boys‘ table is because of their nuclear weapons program.

Let me tell you something that we Israelis have against Moses. He took us 40 years through the desert in order to bring us to the one spot in the Middle East that has no oil!

Putin sought to destabilize Ukraine’s economy.

I trust Russia and China and Iran and North Korea like I trust a Jussie Smollett police report.

A diplomatic solution that puts significant and verifiable constraints on Iran’s nuclear program represents the best and most sustainable chance to ensure that America, Israel, the entire Middle East will never be menaced by a nuclear-armed Iran.

The Middle East is hopeful. There’s hope there.

I don’t think we handled the aftermath of the fall of Baghdad as well as we might have. But that’s now history.

The West Bank is essentially imprisoned.

I hope I’m wrong, but I am afraid that Iraq is going to turn out to be the greatest disaster in American foreign policy – worse than Vietnam, not in the number who died, but in terms of its unintended consequences and its reverberation throughout the region.

What is the one country in the Middle East that has not been attacked by ISIS? One. That is Iran. That is more than happenstance, I’m sure.

In 1979, Iranians carried out an illegitimate act: They overthrew a tyrant that the United States had imposed and supported, and moved on an independent path, not following U.S. orders.

The Middle East is obviously an issue that has plagued the region for centuries.

In 1993, Israel and North Korea were moving towards an agreement in which North Korea would stop sending any missiles or military technology to the Middle East and Israel would recognize that country. President Clinton intervened and blocked it.

We all recognize that the Mid-east is dissolving into crises, and we know terrorism did not start with 9-11.

I have no doubt that Russia will and should remain a major source of energy supplies for Europe and the world.

Prime Minister Maliki, released from American restraint, acted on his worst instincts, creating enormous distrust in Iraq’s Kurdish population and deeply embittering Sunnis in western Iraq’s Al Anbar, who lost any confidence in a Baghdad government they saw as adversarial.

Because I know about the Holy Land, I’ve taught lessons about the Holy Land all my life, and – but you can’t bring peace to Israel without giving the Palestinian also peace. And Lebanon and Jordan and Syria as well.

As far as U.S. intelligence knows, Iran is developing nuclear capacities, but they don’t know if they are trying to develop nuclear weapons or not. Chances are they’re developing what’s called ‚nuclear capability,‘ which many states have. That is the ability to have nuclear weapons if they decide to do it. That’s not a crime.

ISIS is not an existential threat to something happening to someone in the United States of America. It’s a serious problem overseas, but it’s confusing and frightening.

By curious accident of history and geography, the world’s major energy resources are located pretty much in Shiite regions. They’re a minority in the Middle East, but they happen to be where the oil is, right around the northern part of the Gulf.

Unlike Europe, China can’t be intimidated. Europe backs down if the United States looks at it the wrong way. But China, they’ve been there for 3,000 years and are paying no attention to the barbarians and don’t see any need to.

I’ve just finished my 20th book this past year and I’m working on my 21st book about the Middle East right now that I’ll finish this year. And I get up early in the morning and when I get tired of the computer and tired of doing research, I walk 20 steps out to my woodshop and I either build furniture or paint paintings. I’m an artist too.

When I was elected President nobody asked me to negotiate between Israel and Egypt. It was not even a question raised in my campaign. But I felt that one of the reasons that I was elected President was to try to bring peace to the Holy Land.