Top 149 Quotes by Stephen Kinzer

Most Pakistani politics is conducted within a narrow spectrum. Politicians spend much time debating the best ways to fight India, or take Kashmir, or dominate Afghanistan, or punish the United States for its real and imagined sins.

During the 19th century, Britain fought two wars in unsuccessful attempts to subjugate the Afghans. When Britain finally drew a border between India and Afghanistan in 1893, Pashtun tribes in southern Afghanistan were cut off from related tribes across the border in what was then India and is now Pakistan.

One of the most perplexing political questions of the late 20th century is how new democracies should punish deposed dictators and their associates. Victims cry for justice, but leaders of new regimes must decide to what extent it is possible, moral or prudent to pursue evildoers of the past.

American strategic doctrine suggests that Mexico is of second-level importance to the United States. It ranks below Japan and Indonesia, Brazil and India, Egypt and Israel, and European powers including Britain, France, and Germany. This is a grave geopolitical miscalculation.

Other places are also generators of far-flung violence beyond their own borders - Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are obvious examples - but none has as long a history of war, resistance, and terror as Chechnya.