If you really wanted to settle down the Middle East, if what you wanted was change in the Middle East, it is perfectly obvious that the first step is resolving the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.
You have to look at the history of the Middle East in particular. It has been one of failure and frustration, of feudalism and tribalism.
U.S. assistance provides the Jordanian government needed flexibility to pursue policies that are of critical importance to U.S. national security and to foreign policy objectives in the Middle East.
At a time of such hope and optimism in the Middle East, we cannot let the Libyan government violate every principle of international law and human rights with impunity.
One of the enduring problems with certain societies in the world - and this is certainly true of a lot of places in the Middle East - is that the capacity for self-governance and self-organizing just isn't there. It has to do with history.
A history of perceived humiliation, after all, lurks behind many acts of terror. And competing narratives of victimhood and insults sustain conflicts in the Balkans, the Caucasus, the Middle East and many other regions.
Life's too short when you find yourself sitting in a car for four hours every day trying to get from East L.A. to West L.A. to Hollywood and then back to East L.A.
I studied international relations in England, and I wanted to pursue higher education and be able to analyze what was going on in Iran politically, not only in Iran, but in the Middle East.
Jewish intellectuals contributed a great deal to insure that Europe became a continent of humanism, and it is with these humanist ideals that Europe must now intervene in the Middle East conflict.
The war and terrorism in the Middle East, the crisis of leadership in many of the oil-supply countries in the developing world, the crisis of global warming - all these are very clearly tied to energy.
It's really necessary for the United States to continue to give strong leadership to the Middle East peace process, supported by European countries at the same time.
These are all elements, but the main thing we can do in the Middle East is encourage the reformist elements.
I've been to Japan, I've been to China, I've been to Africa, I've been to the Middle East, I've been to Europe a little bit. I've never been to South America.
Put simply, the Bush administration policy in the Middle East is continuing to fail.
On taking office in 2009, U.S. President Barack Obama put Israeli settlements at the center of U.S. policy in the Middle East.
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned, it seems, to direct the Middle East policy of the Obama administration.
Israel is our strongest, most reliable ally in the Middle East. Of course, we're their most reliable ally, too.
You know, the pessimism which exists now in the Middle East existed in Northern Ireland, but we stayed at it.
As long as we're dependent on those fossil fuels, we're dependent on the Middle East. If we are not victims, we're certainly captives.
The U.S. needs to control the Middle East, the gateway to Asia. It already has military installations in Uzbekistan.
Although most Americans don't know it, the U.S. gets more oil from Canada than it does from the entire Middle East.
