Home
Authors
Tags
App
Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App
" I think it's reality that Iran is going to have influence in Iraq. All elements of Iraq accepted that. "
David Petraeus
Influence
Iran
Reality
Related Quotes:
" 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. "
David Petraeus
World
Civilization
Seeing
" I will not ever run for political office. I can assure you. "
David Petraeus
Office
You
Will
" 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. "
David Petraeus
I Am
Life
Sorry
" 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. "
David Petraeus
Work
Women
Tough
" Nothing means more to those in harm's way than the knowledge that their country appreciates their sacrifices and those of their families. "
David Petraeus
Way
Knowledge
More
" 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. "
David Petraeus
Spring
War
People
" 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. "
David Petraeus
Me
Situation
President
" 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. "
David Petraeus
Difficult
Process
Challenges
" 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. "
David Petraeus
Think
Job
Battle
" 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. "
David Petraeus
Protect
Enemies
Against
" The challenge of Mosul and Nineveh is the considerable number of ethnic groups, religious sects, tribes, and other elements that make up the province. "
David Petraeus
Ethnic
Up
Religious
" 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. "
David Petraeus
Done
Congress
Grateful
" 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. "
David Petraeus
Life
Me
Why
" 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. "
David Petraeus
Single
Security
Last
" 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. "
David Petraeus
Genetically
Today
Alive
" 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. "
David Petraeus
You
Point
Mirrors
" Iraq is a country I came to know well and the place where I spent some of the most consequential years of my life. "
David Petraeus
Life
Country
Know
" 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. "
David Petraeus
Blessings
Time
Strong
" We're all outriders out there, and what we have is all these large number of tasks - that's the herd; that's all the cattle - a whole bunch of individual, hundreds if not thousands of projects at any given time ongoing that we're trying to complete. So we're trying to keep the cattle herd, keep it all just going in the right direction. "
David Petraeus
Direction
Time
Right
" Central to achieving progress in Afghanistan - and to setting the conditions necessary to transition security tasks from the international community to the Afghan government - is increasing the size and capability of ANSF. "
David Petraeus
Community
Government
Progress
" After being married for over 37 years, I showed extremely poor judgment by engaging in an extramarital affair. "
David Petraeus
Years
Engaging
Judgment
" You cannot deal with an industrial-strength extremist problem just with force of arms. You have to have that political component as well. "
David Petraeus
Well
Problem
Political
" I considered our British comrades to rank with the finest men and women of any armed service in the world. And I know that my fellow American soldiers - and those of the other coalition countries under my command - valued very highly the professional expertise, capability, courage, and determination of our British partners on the battlefield. "
David Petraeus
Women
Courage
Determination
" 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. "
David Petraeus
You
Mind
Find
" We can put a stake through the heart of Islamic State as an army. We can put a stake through the heart of its leaders. You can take away its territory. But you can't put a stake through the heart of the ideas, of the ideology, that sadly, tragically, still has some attraction for some small numbers in the Islamic faith. "
David Petraeus
Ideas
Army
Faith
" 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. "
David Petraeus
Against
Us
Tide
" 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. "
David Petraeus
Country
Bad
You
" Folks really need to be very cautious about overanalyzing or overparsing what I've said to this reporter or that reporter. "
David Petraeus
Said
Cautious
Need
" 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. "
David Petraeus
World
War
Democracy
" The bottom line is, you really have to commit to something if you're going to be successful in it. "
David Petraeus
Successful
Bottom
Going