Richard Perle Quotes

I’ve never thought much of Joe Nye’s writings on soft power.

National sovereignty is an obligation as well as an entitlement. A government that will not perform the role of a government forfeits the rights of a government.

I think there is a potential civic culture in Arab countries that can lead to democratic institutions and I think Iraq is probably the best place to put that proposition to the test

Dictators must have enemies. They must have internal enemies to justify their secret police and external enemies to justify their military forces.

Sometimes the things we have to do are objectionable in the eyes of others.

About George W. Bush: "He came ill-equipped for the job and has failed to master it."

I really don't have a solution. Except to say that a precondition for any solution must be a recognition on the part of all parties on the legitimacy of all parties. That is you cannot build a political agreement on the premise that a Jewish state in Palestine is illegitimate.

The programme of the British Labour Party under Neil Kinnock is so wildly irresponsible, so separate and apart from the historic NATO strategy, that I think a Labour government that stood by its present policies—and I rather doubt that they would—would, if it didn't destroy the Alliance, at least diminish its effective ability to do the task for which it was created.

Well, you’re going to find a disproportionate number of Jews in any sort of intellectual undertaking.

"I think in this case international law stood in the way of doing the right thing." (2003)

And a year from now, I'll be very surprised if there is not some grand square in Baghdad that is named after President Bush. There is no doubt that, with the exception of a very small number of people close to a vicious regime, the people of Iraq have been liberated and they understand that they've been liberated. And it is getting easier every day for Iraqis to express that sense of liberation.