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" The world has changed, the CIA is having to change, and again, the challenge for someone like me as a spy novelist is to write realistically about where they're actually going. "
David Ignatius
Challenge
Change
Someone
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" If you want better behavior from bankers, then make their financial incentives more like those in the hedge-fund world - where managers have 'skin in the game,' and their net worth is tied to their long-term performance. "
David Ignatius
World
Game
You
" Europeans don't like to talk about intelligence, and they often pretend their countries don't spy. "
David Ignatius
Pretend
Spy
Talk
" CIA officers aren't idiots. They knew they were heading into deep water - legally and morally - when they signed up for the interrogation program. That's part of the agency's ethos - doing the hard jobs that other departments prudently avoid. "
David Ignatius
Avoid
Doing
Hard
" I've tried, in 'Bloodmoney,' to tell a story that gets at the crazy relationship between the ISI and the CIA, these absolutely fascinating, often mutually destructive two scorpions in a bottle kind of relationship that they have. "
David Ignatius
Kind
Two
Relationship
" The American experiment has always depended on a measure of tolerance and good sense. "
David Ignatius
Tolerance
Measure
American
" What frustrates U.S. officials is that China sometimes seems more comfortable accommodating a strong United States, as it did in past decades, than partnering with an America that's less dominant. "
David Ignatius
More
Past
Strong
" Panic is a natural human response to danger, but it's one that severely compounds the risk. "
David Ignatius
Human
Risk
Danger
" Gen. David Petraeus, commander of U.S. troops in Iraq, Afghanistan and at Centcom, is probably the most decorated officer of his generation. "
David Ignatius
Commander
Generation
Most
" Machiavelli did believe that it was better to appear to be good than to be good. If you're good, you're just too vulnerable, but if you appear to be good, you get all the benefits plus you can be sneaky and, when necessary, stab someone in the back. "
David Ignatius
You
Good
Believe
" A disaffected America can be drawn into a civilized - but disruptive - dialogue about political change and reformation. "
David Ignatius
Change
Dialogue
America
" Experts say that Britain and France have strong spy agencies; Germany's is competent but afraid to level with its public; the rest are relatively weak, and there is no Europe-wide spy agency. "
David Ignatius
Spy
Say
Rest
" The surest way to empower the new terrorist gangs would be to withdraw from U.S. diplomatic missions. "
David Ignatius
Gangs
Way
Terrorist
" Make the financial industry pay for its mistakes. That's the idea behind the best of the Obama administration's reform proposals: If banks issue securities backed by mortgages, say, then require them to hold some of that paper so that they will bear some of the losses. "
David Ignatius
Say
Best
Paper
" Bob Gates has unusual standing in the debate about the Obama administration's foreign policy: He was defense secretary for both a hawkish President George W. Bush and a wary President Obama. He understood Bush's desire to project power and Obama's skepticism. "
David Ignatius
Desire
Power
Debate
" President Obama was right to ban torture, but the public must understand that this decision carries a potential cost in lost information. That's what makes it a moral choice. "
David Ignatius
Information
Potential
Lost
" Making economic policy isn't a popularity contest, especially when financial markets are in a panic. "
David Ignatius
Economic
Panic
Policy
" We're grappling with the same issue facing all advanced economies - how to revive growth and distribute its fruits more fairly. An America that can tackle that problem head-on can perhaps help revive a stagnant global economy. "
David Ignatius
Help
Growth
Economy
" Prominent scientists have become increasingly convinced that the connection between carbon emissions and rising temperatures is real, but skeptics have whole truckloads of studies to demonstrate the opposite. "
David Ignatius
Become
Connection
Opposite
" I'm as prone to 'declinism' as the next over-mortgaged middle-aged guy. "
David Ignatius
Guy
Prone
Next
" The revival of the U.S. financial system after the crash of 2008 is arguably the Obama administration's biggest domestic policy success. "
David Ignatius
System
Policy
Financial
" World War II provides a string of celebrated cases of deception and manipulation. "
David Ignatius
World
Deception
War
" Big mistakes were made in Benghazi, and people should be held accountable. But the brave officers who staff American posts in crisis zones know how dangerous the work is. "
David Ignatius
People
American
Brave
" It's easier for China to assert its maritime power by creating artificial islands in the South China Sea than by defying the U.S. Pacific Fleet with an aircraft carrier. "
David Ignatius
Sea
Power
Creating
" The ISI is above all a paramilitary organization. It doesn't do all that much collection of intelligence. It's not a very good spy agency, but it's good at running covert action. "
David Ignatius
Organization
Intelligence
Good
" Hedge-fund managers make too much money relative to their social utility. I wish their rewards were a bit closer to those of, say, schoolteachers. "
David Ignatius
Wish
I Wish
Money
" Journalists couldn't do their jobs overseas without taking risks, and the same is true for diplomats and intelligence officers. "
David Ignatius
Risks
Taking Risks
True
" Russia is emerging as an essential diplomatic and security partner for the U.S. in Syria, despite the Obama administration's opposition to Moscow's support for President Bashar al-Assad. "
David Ignatius
Support
Partner
Russia
" Foreign policy is about the execution of ideas as much as their formulation. "
David Ignatius
Policy
Execution
Foreign Policy
" Moscow and Washington have evolved a delicate process for 'de-confliction' in the tight Syrian airspace, where accidents or miscommunication could be disastrous. "
David Ignatius
Accidents
Washington
Delicate
" The worm of paranoia begins to eat into even the hardest adversary. "
David Ignatius
Worm
Paranoia
Begins