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The Great Gatsby
Hamlet

Richard Engel Quotes

Israel specifically does not want Syria to hand over weapons, chemical or conventional, to Hezbollah.

– Richard Engel

We should have a time to reflect on the accomplishments of the military, of their sacrifices, of their failures.

– Richard Engel

In October 2008, American commandos launched a cross-border raid into Syria to capture an Islamic militant known as Abu Ghadiya. He was accused of being one of al Qaeda in Iraq’s main smugglers of fighters and money between Iraq and Syria.

– Richard Engel

There was an insurgency under President Hosni Mubarak in the 1990s. Egyptian police and soldiers fought weekly battles with Islamists in the sugarcane fields and thick reeds along the Nile in rural southern villages like Minya, Sohag, Enna and Assiout.

– Richard Engel

Initially, before the modern state of Iraq was created, there were three separate provinces here: a Shiite in the south, a largely Sunni one in the middle, and a Kurdish one in the north.

– Richard Engel

There is no Afghan Awakening Movement.

– Richard Engel

Many senior government officials, CIA, FBI, counter terrorism officials – when they look back at the decade, they effectively conclude that the United States overreacted after 9/11.

– Richard Engel

I think the Chinese model is one that appeals more and more in the developing world. People see that an authoritarian state can hold onto power, can hold on to stability and can drive the economy forward.

– Richard Engel

Hamas is a Palestinian political party with an aggressive militant wing.

– Richard Engel

I had some training on how to cope with hostage-taking.

– Richard Engel

Israel is shutting out the Arab world and shutting itself in.

– Richard Engel

Many governments are quick to condemn Assad, but a dwindling number of them would celebrate a rebel victory in Damascus.

– Richard Engel

We know that al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has some very dangerous, very important leaders who are tied directly to the top leadership of al Qaeda central, including a man who was formerly Osama bin Laden’s secretary.

– Richard Engel

The U.S. invaded the wrong country, destroying an odious government that was not responsible for 9/11. I don’t know how you recover from invading the wrong country, no matter how you spin it.

– Richard Engel

Damascus was the seat of the Ummayad Caliphate in the 7th and 8th centuries.

– Richard Engel

The U.S. spent years and years and billions of dollars to build the Iraqi army only to watch it collapse and hand over so many of its weapons.

– Richard Engel

A lot of Iran’s empowerment is a result of the war in Iraq.

– Richard Engel

The people of Gaza are trapped. Israel has sealed the border, and they have no way to leave the Gaza Strip to do business.

– Richard Engel

Every war has revolutionary justice.

– Richard Engel

The Syrian border town of Qa’im was the main gateway Islamic radicals used to go to Iraq. Syria became the passageway for extremists from Egypt, Libya, Afghanistan, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and other Muslim nations to fight a jihad against American forces in Iraq.

– Richard Engel

The Muslim Brotherhood is a fundamentalist group.

– Richard Engel

Hezbollah and the government are only two of 18 political factions in Lebanon, most of them armed. There are militant Christian groups, Palestinian radicals, al-Qaida, Druze militias and even armed bands of Marxists still operating in Lebanon.

– Richard Engel

ISIS is in many ways a creation of the Syrian regime.

– Richard Engel

The Donetsk People’s Republic is the self-declared pro-Russian government that wants to break away from Ukraine.

– Richard Engel

By 2007, Iraqi society had completely collapsed.

– Richard Engel

Ethnically, Tuareg describe themselves as white. And they don’t look Arab or black. Many Tuareg have light skin, light eyes and sharp angular noses and cheekbones. They are cousins of the Berbers of North Africa. Some legends say the Tuareg are the decedents of an ancient Roman legion that disappeared into the desert two millennia ago.

– Richard Engel

Turkey wants to see Bashar al-Assad go and wants to kind of expand its sphere of influence into Turkey so its Ottoman glory or Ottoman past are once again project into the Syrian provinces. That’s kind of what Turkey’s vision is.

– Richard Engel

Osama bin Laden organized an attack that was carried out against the United States, New York, Pentagon, and the other aircraft, with 19 attackers, 19 guys with box cutters. An attack that probably cost almost nothing.

– Richard Engel

Insurgencies are easy to make and hard to stop. Only a few ingredients need to combine to create an insurgency; like oxygen and fire, they’re very common and mix all too often. The recipe is, simply, a legitimate grievance against a state, a state that refuses to compromise, a quorum of angry people, and access to weapons.

– Richard Engel

Lebanon does not have a powerful army.

– Richard Engel

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