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The Great Gatsby
Hamlet

Free Literature Study Guides
The Great Gatsby
Hamlet

Stephen Kinzer Quotes

As long as Iran believes that its security will be increased by having a nuclear program, it’s going to pursue its program.

– Stephen Kinzer

No offense to Iceland, but Latin America is where the fugitive leaker Edward Snowden should settle.

– Stephen Kinzer

What the United States wanted in Guatemala – and in Iran, where the C.I.A. also deposed a government in the early 1950s – was pro-American stability.

– Stephen Kinzer

Turks have long admired the sultan, Mehmet II, for his military triumphs, especially his capture of Constantinople, now known as Istanbul, in 1453.

– Stephen Kinzer

If a leader comes to office in a seemingly fair election and tolerates dissent, he or she qualifies for our seal of approval.

– Stephen Kinzer

With the exception of China, and perhaps Turkey, no country in the world matters as much to the United States as Mexico.

– Stephen Kinzer

Celebrating historic triumphs is a favorite pastime for many Turks. Tales of how Turkic peoples emerged from Central Asia, crossed the steppes to Anatolia, established the Ottoman Empire and ruled for centuries over large swaths of Europe and Asia are the subject of countless legends, poems and books.

– Stephen Kinzer

Archaeologists have made discoveries that challenge fundamental traditions of Judaism as well as those of Christianity and Islam.

– Stephen Kinzer

Afghanistan’s borders are arbitrary, drawn to meet 19th-century political needs rather than to respect ethnic or religious patterns.

– Stephen Kinzer

Washington sees the various local and national conflicts in the Middle East as part of a battle for regional hegemony between the U.S. and Iran.

– Stephen Kinzer

Accepting that Arabs have the right to elect their own leaders means accepting the rise of governments that do not share America’s pro-Israel militancy.

– Stephen Kinzer

Some major American publishing houses still seek work by foreign writers.

– Stephen Kinzer

Alliances and partnerships produce stability when they reflect realities and interests.

– Stephen Kinzer

From the 1920s into the 1940s, Britain’s standard of living was supported by oil from Iran. British cars, trucks, and buses ran on cheap Iranian oil. Factories throughout Britain were fueled by oil from Iran. The Royal Navy, which projected British power all over the world, powered its ships with Iranian oil.

– Stephen Kinzer

During the 1980s, international interest in the Nicaraguan war was intense. No conflict since the Spanish civil war had provoked such passion around the world. It was a classic good-versus-evil war.

– Stephen Kinzer

The United States is holding hundreds of suspected terrorists in prisons at Guantanamo and elsewhere. Many are locked up indefinitely. They have not been tried or even charged with any crime.

– Stephen Kinzer

Any country that grants asylum to Snowden risks retaliation from the United States, including diplomatic isolation and costly trade sanctions. Several don’t seem to care.

– Stephen Kinzer

The United States has means to wound Latin American countries deeply, chiefly by altering trade policies to cut imports in ways that would throw thousands out of work.

– Stephen Kinzer

Guatemala’s ornate presidential palace, once a terrifying fortress whose every corridor was patrolled by heavily armed soldiers in berets and camouflage uniforms, is now a normal public building where ordinary citizens enter without fear.

– Stephen Kinzer

Most Pakistani politics is conducted within a narrow spectrum. Politicians spend much time debating the best ways to fight India, or take Kashmir, or dominate Afghanistan, or punish the United States for its real and imagined sins.

– Stephen Kinzer

The long-term strategic goals of Iran and the long-term strategic goals of Turkey are close to the long-term strategic goals of the United States.

– Stephen Kinzer

In 1983, most Nicaraguans had still not fallen to the depths of deprivation and despair which they would reach in later years, but many were already unhappy and restive.

– Stephen Kinzer

American strategic doctrine suggests that Mexico is of second-level importance to the United States. It ranks below Japan and Indonesia, Brazil and India, Egypt and Israel, and European powers including Britain, France, and Germany. This is a grave geopolitical miscalculation.

– Stephen Kinzer

During the 1990s the United States sought to impose the ‘Washington Consensus’ on Latin American governments. It embodied what Latin Americans call ‘neo-liberal’ principles: budget cuts, privatization, deregulation of business, and incentives for foreign companies. This campaign sparked bitter resistance and ultimately collapsed.

– Stephen Kinzer

Many troubled Midwestern towns are grasping for ways to fend off decline and, in some cases, extinction.

– Stephen Kinzer

The U.S. has intervened more often in more countries farther from its own shores than has any power in modern history.

– Stephen Kinzer

During the 19th century, Britain fought two wars in unsuccessful attempts to subjugate the Afghans. When Britain finally drew a border between India and Afghanistan in 1893, Pashtun tribes in southern Afghanistan were cut off from related tribes across the border in what was then India and is now Pakistan.

– Stephen Kinzer

In the 1980s, the U.S. Army invaded two Caribbean countries, Grenada and Panama, to depose leaders who had defied Washington.

– Stephen Kinzer

Iran, in its former incarnation as Persia, created the world’s first empire, produced titanic figures like Cyrus, Darius, and Xerxes, and is one of the great fonts of world culture.

– Stephen Kinzer

Western powers remain imprisoned by the idea that the world is a dangerous place, that it needs to be managed, and that they are called upon to do the managing.

– Stephen Kinzer

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