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

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" The president and I sat down in the Oval Office, and he expressed very clearly that what he wants from me is my best professional military advice. "

" Mubarak would meet with me when I was at Central Command. He would lean and put his hand on my knee, as if a father figure, and say, 'General, don't ever forget the Arab Street. Listen to the Arab Street.' I'd like to go to him now and say, 'Mr. President, what about that Arab Street, what's that all about?' "

" But clearly, this is what this is about. It's about pushing the security bubble out. It's about rooting out every last guy, so that there's not even somebody who can fire a single, solitary RPG round from some little qalat out here. "

" It wasn't just Shia that would go to Tehran and see the commander of the Quds Force and others and the legitimate government leaders. It was also Kurdish leaders and Sunni Arabs who would even link up with Qassim Suleimani, the commander of the Quds Force - maybe not in Tehran but in Turkey or somewhere else. "

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

" 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. "

" We cannot kill or capture our way out of an industrial-strength insurgency. "

" 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. "

" I am not a politician, and I will never be, and I say that with absolute conviction. "

" The Germans have done wonderful work. Not long ago, a German battle group battalion conducted a very impressive counterinsurgency operation in a portion of Baghlan province. I think these are the first counterinsurgency operations conducted by any German element after World War II. And they did a very impressive job. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" Iraq's Sunnis need to be brought back into the fold. They need to feel as though they have a stake in the success of Iraq rather than a stake in its failure. "

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

" During the surge in Iraq, we were able to roll back the tide of al-Qaeda and associated insurgents because we succeeded in mobilizing Iraqis - especially Sunni Arabs - to join us in fighting against the largely Sunni extremist networks in their midst. "

" Setting aside moral considerations, those who flirt with hate speech against Muslims should realize they are playing directly into the hands of al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. The terrorists' explicit hope has been to try to provoke a clash of civilizations - telling Muslims that the United States is at war with them and their religion. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" A certain degree of intellectual humility is a good thing. "

" I'm living the dream. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "