Under a decades-old agreement, Palestinian refugee camps are supposed to administer and police themselves. Lebanese troops are technically not allowed to enter them. – Richard Engel
War does horrible things to human beings, to societies. It brings out the best, but most often the worst, in our human nature. – Richard Engel
For years, Lebanese have known that Palestinian camps like Nahr al-Barid and Ain al-Helwe – hopeless slums crowded with generations of disenfranchised Palestinian refugees who can’t go home because of Israel, and can’t work because of Lebanese laws – are awash with gunmen, criminals and, since the war in Iraq, al-Qaida inspired jihadists. – Richard Engel
Not surprisingly, in most Sunni regions there has little appetite for free U.S.-sponsored elections. – Richard Engel
Foreigners who speak Arabic in the Middle East are often assumed to be working for the C.I.A. or Israel’s intelligence agency, the Mossad. – Richard Engel
I don’t think you’re going to be seeing the U.S. employing large army divisions to deal with small terrorist groups again. I don’t think they’re going to be occupying foreign nations in order to dry up terrorist groups within them. I think that lesson has been learned. – Richard Engel
When you look at Syria, and you look at all the militant groups on the ground, there are many groups in Syria that could pose a threat to the United States, not just Khorasan. – Richard Engel
There weren’t many weapons in Egypt in the 1990s. Police controls on guns were very strict back then. That is no longer the case in Egypt today. – Richard Engel
President George W. Bush, in his now-rare public appearances and interviews, still refuses to acknowledge he did anything to help Iran. But it doesn’t really matter what he thinks. – Richard Engel
Women, who enjoyed a high social status and levels of education under Saddam, saw terrible setbacks as Iraq fell into civil war. As a result of the sectarian violence from 2005-2007, women retreated to their homes and fell from public view. – Richard Engel
Mali exists mostly to itself. Few people go there. Few Malians leave. Most of Mali’s 13 million people live, and seem to live quite happily, off the rice, corn and millet they grow and the long-horn cattle and goats they keep. – Richard Engel
Anyone who follows the Middle East and Islamic world in general can’t deny it is often a very violent place, that a band of instability now stretches from Algeria to Pakistan. – Richard Engel
A nuclear program has arguably worked as a deterrent for North Korea and other states – would Moammar Gadhafi have been deposed and summarily killed if Libya had had nuclear weapons? Iranians might not think so. – Richard Engel
If Syria collapses completely, the United States and the world would have to consider who, and what, fills the vacuum. – Richard Engel
The Israeli military believes it has destroyed all of Hamas’s tunnels, or at least all the ones it knew about. – Richard Engel
In 2009, Hamas was relatively new to power. It had won elections just three years earlier and was flexing its newfound strength via a war with its old enemy, Israel, which it officially wants destroyed. – Richard Engel
War can be fun for certain people. It’s a magnet for sadists, losers, and angry dreamers. – Richard Engel
President Bashar Assad’s regime is in the unique position of being targeted both by Israel and supporters of al Qaeda. – Richard Engel
When you look at – when you talk to people in Africa and across the Middle East, they’re not satisfied with the way things are going. Sure, this idea of democracy was injected into the region, but it has brought mostly chaos. – Richard Engel
Osama Bin Laden is dead. Killed not by a massive troop deployment but by a commando raid carried out by a few dozen highly trained men and helicopters. – Richard Engel
Based on the people l’ve spoken to, I think the impression is: Is America safer from Al Qaeda? Yes. Is America weaker as a nation because we have overspent and over-focused on Al Qaeda? Yes. I think that would be the conclusion that people seem to have come to and that I tend to agree with. – Richard Engel