Top 80 David Petraeus Quotes

At least from a national security standpoint, none of the problems the U.S. and U.K. face will become easier to solve if the U.K. is out of the E.U.; on the contrary, I fear that a ‘Brexit‘ would only make our world even more dangerous and difficult to manage.

I’m heartened that, for the first time, we’re seeing some of the Internet Service Providers and the social media sites taking action against the Islamic State. That’s the kind of initiative that can very, very much augment on an industrial scale what the government is trying to do.

Folks really need to be very cautious about overanalyzing or overparsing what I’ve said to this reporter or that reporter.

There is nothing I can do to undo what I did. I can only say again how sorry I am to those I let down and then strive to go forward with a greater sense of humility and purpose, and with gratitude to those who stood with me during a very difficult chapter in my life.

The foremost threat to Iraq’s long-term stability and the broader regional equilibrium is not the Islamic State, it is Shiite militias, many backed by – and some guided by – Iran.

At a certain point, you have to take the rearview mirrors off the bus and focus forward, and that’s what we’ve sought to do.

The central problem in Syria is that Sunni Arabs will not be willing partners against the Islamic State unless we commit to protect them and the broader Syrian population against all enemies, not just ISIS.

The Pakistani Army, the Frontier Corps, the Frontier Scouts and Police have carried out quite impressive counter-insurgency operations.

In many… cases, of course, the Arab Spring has brought about instability rather than greater stability. And rather than bringing about government that is more representative and more responsive to the people, you’re seeing, frankly, the opposite, or you’re seeing all-out war.

President Obama has said that our aspirations should be realistic. We are not going to turn one of the poorest countries in the world, that was plunged into 30 years of war, into an advanced, industrialized, Western-style democracy. What we want to achieve is Afghanistan‘s capacity to secure and govern itself.

People often ask, why aren’t you reading about what it is you’re working on right now? And the truth is, you only get three pages a night before your eyelids close.

Iran has had a very harmful effect in a variety of ways in the region… fomenting unrest to a degree in Saudi Arabia, undoubtedly in Bahrain, and definitely in Yemen with Hamas, with Lebanese Hezbollah among other activities in locations.

We need to learn from our experiences and take responsibilities for our actions and drive on.

Like a nuclear disaster, the fallout from the meltdown of Syria threatens to be with us for decades, and the longer it is permitted to continue, the more severe the damage will be.

Well, the oil, the oil spot, if you will, is a, is a term in counterinsurgency literature that connotes a peaceful area, secure area. So what you’re trying to do is to always extend that, to push that out.

A certain degree of intellectual humility is a good thing.

I don’t comment directly on actions or statements of candidates.

The truth is that a number of us have been saying for quite some time that it was only a matter of time until someone went to a gun show, bought a military-like semi-automatic assault weapon with a large capacity magazine, and did enormous damage.

The idea is to go to bed every night with fewer enemies than you had in the morning.

In the 101st Airborne Division headquarters in Mosul, we had a sign on the wall. It was a question that we would ask ourselves before every new operation or policy initiative. It asked: Will this policy or operation take more bad guys off the streets than it creates by its conduct?

Partners from the Islamic world are of particular importance. Indeed, they have huge incentives to be involved, as the ongoing struggles are generally not clashes between civilizations. Rather, what we are seeing is more accurately a clash within a civilization: that of the Islamic world.

When I was commander of Central Command, obviously we were very concerned about the developments in Yemen, the developments in Somalia and elsewhere, in Africa and so forth. But the al Qaeda senior leadership is under unprecedented pressure.

Only Nixon could have gone to China. Anyone else would have been criticised from the Right.

The Afghan people do not take kindly to conquerors.

There aren’t always a hell of a lot of absolutely right answers out there.

Ungoverned spaces in the Islamic world will be exploited by people who wish us ill. They will not be contained.

You cannot deal with an industrial-strength extremist problem just with force of arms. You have to have that political component as well.

I refuse to use terms like ‘optimist‘ or ‘pessimist‘ and instead prefer ‘realist.’

Iraq does have many, many different tensions.

The bottom line is that Daesh’s defeat requires not just hammering them on the battlefield but, simultaneously, revived political reconciliation with Sunnis.

I think no commander ever is going to come out and say, ‘I’m confident that we can do this.’

The Congress, the executive branch, and our fellow citizens have done an enormous amount to support our troopers and their loved ones. And all of us are grateful for that.

The Middle East is not part of the world that plays by Las Vegas rules: What happens in the Middle East is not going to stay in the Middle East.

The process to resolve post-Islamic State issues will be difficult and intense.

Every civilian‘s death diminishes us, collectively.

As we used to say when I was privileged to be the commander there, Nineveh province has the most diverse human terrain in all of Iraq – Sunni Arab majority to be sure, but also Shia Arabs, numerous Kurdish communities, and they are broken out into several different political parties.

You have to keep on disrupting. If you let up the pressure, then al-Qaeda senior leadership will come back.

America is not in decline.

Reconciliation is what takes place, of course, at higher levels. President Karzai has been very clear about the red lines for reconciliation, accept the constitution, lay down their weapons, cut their ties with al Qaeda and essentially become productive or at least participating members of society in that regard.

We periodically note that there are no silver bullets, there are no magic formulas, there’s no single action or component of the overall… comprehensive civil-military approach.

Counter-insurgency, as you know, is a roller-coaster affair.

I don’t vote.

If you look at casualties, you find countries that had much higher loss rates per capita than the US. Denmark comes to mind, the United Kingdom, they have suffered heavy losses at various points, the Germans as well.

The proximate cause of Iraq’s unraveling was the increasing authoritarian, sectarian, and corrupt conduct of the Iraqi government and its leader after the departure of the last U.S. combat forces in 2011.

There is no question in my mind that a ‘Brexit’ would deal a significant blow to the E.U.’s strength and resilience at exactly the moment when the West is under attack from multiple directions.

The Orlando terrorist is an example of someone who was in the sights of law enforcement but never crossed the threshold from pre-criminal to criminal behavior and, thus, was not tracked adequately before this horrific act.

If you’re asked, you’ve got to serve – put aside any reservations based on campaign rhetoric… and figure out what’s best for the country.

Needless to say, it was the greatest of privileges to serve with the selfless men and women – Iraqi and American and those of our coalition partners, civilian as well as military – who did the hard, dangerous work of the surge. There seldom was an easy period; each day was tough.

Life is a competitive endeavor.

Leading the coalition military effort during the surge in Iraq in 2007 and 2008 was the most important endeavor – and greatest challenge – of my 37 years in uniform.

I do talk to individuals still in the business of tracking individuals in the homeland and abroad. A lot of them have felt that they were hanging on by their fingernails a bit in terms of tracking all the potential threats out there.

If you don’t want to have to kill or capture every bad guy in the country, you have to reintegrate those who are willing to be reconciled and become part of the solution instead of a continued part of the problem. And then, above all, the resources.

In counterinsurgency operations, the human terrain is the decisive terrain.

Rumors of the American demise… have been greatly exaggerated.

I am not going to second-guess my old battlefield comrades from Iraq and Afghanistan; each has his own reason for what he has done.

Items of interest will be located, identified, monitored, and remotely controlled through technologies such as radio-frequency identification, sensor networks, tiny embedded servers, and energy harvesters – all connected to the next-generation internet using abundant, low-cost, and high-power computing.

I really started to get a sense of how, if you will, special Zarqawi was, I guess, sort of midway through 2004.

I will not ever run for political office. I can assure you.

We will win again in Iraq; I do think that Iraq can definitely be handled. I think that it can be kept intact.

The bottom line is, you really have to commit to something if you’re going to be successful in it.

The progress in Iraq is still fragile. And it could still be reversed. Iraq still faces innumerable challenges, and they will be evident during what will likely be a difficult process as the newly elected Council of Representatives selects the next prime minister, president, and speaker of the council.

There were very few people who were both intercollegiate athletes and Star Men.

I can’t for the life of me think of the link between Iraq and why a fruit vendor self-immolates in Tunisia and cracks this seemingly solid crust that turns out to be so fragile that societal unrest touches off.

I’m living the dream.

In many respects, Afghanistan represents a more difficult problem set. It does not have a number of the blessings that Iraq has in terms of the oil, gas, land of two rivers, the human capital that Iraq built up over the years, the muscle memory of a strong government – albeit one that was corrupted over time.

Ethno-sectarian violence is a particular concern in Iraq, as it is a cancer that continues to spread if left unchecked.

Leadership is an individual sport, one that has to be fine-tuned to each of the people that reports to you. Leaders also need to provide the direction, energy, encouragement and inspiration for each person who reports directly to the leader as well as for the overall organization.

All Americans should take great pride in the men and women serving our nation in Iraq and in the courage, determination, resilience and initiative they demonstrate each and every day. It remains the greatest of honors to soldier with them.

After being married for over 37 years, I showed extremely poor judgment by engaging in an extramarital affair.

The situation in Iraq was dire at the end of 2006, when President George W. Bush decided to implement the surge and selected me to command it. Indeed, when I returned to Baghdad in early February 2007, I found the conditions there to be even worse than I had expected.

Over time, the desire of Iraqis to contribute to their own security has manifested itself in citizens volunteering for the police, the Army, and concerned local citizen programs.

The biggest of the big ideas that guided the strategy during the surge was explicit recognition that the most important terrain in the campaign in Iraq was the human terrain – the people – and our most important mission was to improve their security.

To do de-Baathification without an agreed process of reconciliation threw tens of thousands of people out of their jobs, out of their homes, out of their future, and even robbed them of their position in society.

I’ve truly tried to be apolitical.

Leaders of the various Iraqi elements will likely have their own militias, and there will be endless rounds of brinkmanship on the road to post-Islamic State boundaries, governing structures, and distribution of power and resources.

Being in combat is not unending high-five moments.

There is not a military commander alive today who is genetically predisposed to say that he has enough ISR and assets, and particularly not in the Central Command theater.

The word ‘insurgency’ had connotations that really sent a shiver down the spine of folks in Washington, in the United States – for good reason, because it means this is something much bigger than just a few terrorist cells.

Nothing means more to those in harm’s way than the knowledge that their country appreciates their sacrifices and those of their families.

I think it’s reality that Iran is going to have influence in Iraq. All elements of Iraq accepted that.