Richard Perle

Richard Norman Perle (born September 16, 1941), Member of the U.S. Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee

Quotes

• National sovereignty is an obligation as well as an entitlement. A government that will not perform the role of a government forfeits the rights of a government.
  • An End To Evil: How To Win the War on Terror, David Frum, Richard N. Perle, Ballantine (reprint,2004), Chapter 5 'The War Abroad,' p. 102 : ISBN 0345477170

• "I think in this case international law stood in the way of doing the right thing." (2003)
  • Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1089158,00.html
  • Notes: in reference to the legality of the 2003 invasion of Iraq

• "And a year from now, I'll be very surprised if there is not some grand square in Baghdad that is named after President Bush. There is no doubt that, with the exception of a very small number of people close to a vicious regime, the people of Iraq have been liberated and they understand that they've been liberated. And it is getting easier every day for Iraqis to express that sense of liberation."
  • Source: http://www.aei.org/events/contentID.20031003144313426/default.asp
  • Source: http://www.catch.com/comments/34635_0_17_0_C/
  • Notes: from luncheon keynote speech, "Turkey at the Crossroads", September 22, 2003

• Sometimes the things we have to do are objectionable in the eyes of others.
• I’ve never thought much of Joe Nye’s writings on soft power.
• Dictators must have enemies. They must have internal enemies to justify their secret police and external enemies to justify their military forces.
  • 2005 February 17 - In a debate with DNC Chairman Howard Dean at Pacific University

• I really don't have a solution. Except to say that a precondition for any solution must be a recognition on the part of all parties on the legitimacy of all parties. That is you cannot build a political agreement on the premise that a Jewish state in Palestine is illegitimate.
  • When asked about a solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a 1988 debate with Noam Chomsky at Ohio State University
    • Source: http://www.radio4all.net/index.php?op=program-info&program_id=8409 http://chomskytorrents.org/TorrentDetails.php?TorrentID=130

• I think there is a potential civic culture in Arab countries that can lead to democratic institutions and I think Iraq is probably the best place to put that proposition to the test
• Well, you’re going to find a disproportionate number of Jews in any sort of intellectual undertaking.
  • PBS Think Tank interview by Ben Wattenberg, November 14, 2002
  • Source: http://www.pbs.org/thinktank/transcript1017.html

• The programme of the British Labour Party under Neil Kinnock is so wildly irresponsible, so separate and apart from the historic NATO strategy, that I think a Labour government that stood by its present policies—and I rather doubt that they would—would, if it didn't destroy the Alliance, at least diminish its effective ability to do the task for which it was created.
  • The Times (25 September, 1986).

• About George W. Bush: "He came ill-equipped for the job and has failed to master it."
  • Source: "Perle Turns on Bush in Harsh Terms", by Nicholas Wapshott, New York Sun, May 15, 2007
  • Notes: newspaper article reporting on Perle's statements at a meeting of the Hudson Institute on May 14, 2007.

External links