Henry Kissinger - Political Quotes

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What political leaders decide, intelligence services tend to seek to justify.

Henry Kissinger

We fought a military war; our opponents fought a political one. We sought physical attrition; our opponents aimed for our psychological exhaustion. In the process we lost sight of one of the cardinal maxims of guerrilla war: the guerrilla wins if he does not lose. The conventional army loses if it does not win. The North Vietnamese used their armed forces the way a bull-fighter uses his cape — to keep us lunging in areas of marginal political importance.

Henry Kissinger

If you mean by "military victory" an Iraqi government that can be established and whose writ runs across the whole country, that gets the civil war under control and sectarian violence under control in a time period that the political processes of the democracies will support, I don't believe that is possible.

Henry Kissinger

Peace depends ultimately not on political arrangements but on the conscience of mankind.

Henry Kissinger

The public life of every political figure is a continual struggle to rescue an element of choice from the pressure of circumstance.

Henry Kissinger