“I always tell the Kurds who defend independence: Let's say we declared the independent Kurdish state and Syria, Iran, Iraq and Turkey imposed sanctions on us, without waging a war. How would we survive under those circumstances?”

—  Jalal Talabani

Turkish Daily News staff (September 14, 2007) "Talabani: War against Turkey equal to war against democracy", Turkish Daily News.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "I always tell the Kurds who defend independence: Let's say we declared the independent Kurdish state and Syria, Iran, I…" by Jalal Talabani?
Jalal Talabani photo
Jalal Talabani 19
Iraqi politician 1933–2017

Related quotes

Ron Paul photo

“Rarely do we hear that Iraq has never committed any aggression against the United States. No one in the media questions our aggression against Iraq for the past 12 years by continuous bombing and imposed sanctions responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of children. […] Only tyrants can take a nation to war without the consent of the people. The planned war against Iraq without a Declaration of War is illegal. It is unwise because of many unforeseen consequences that are likely to result. It is immoral and unjust, because it has nothing to do with US security and because Iraq has not initiated aggression against us. We must understand that the American people become less secure when we risk a major conflict driven by commercial interests and not constitutionally authorized by Congress. Victory under these circumstances is always elusive, and unintended consequences are inevitable”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

Before We Bomb Iraq http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec2002/cr022602.htm (February 26, 2002).
2000s, 2001-2005

“Before the war, it was said 'the United States are' - grammatically it was spoken that way and thought of as a collection of independent states. And after the war it was always 'the United States is', as we say today without being self-conscious at all. And that sums up what the war accomplished. It made us an 'is'.”

Shelby Foote (1916–2005) Novelist, historian

Interviewed in the documentary series The Civil War, 1990

George W. Bush photo

“Succeeding in Iraq also requires defending its territorial integrity and stabilizing the region in the face of extremist challenges. This begins with addressing Iran and Syria. These two regimes are allowing terrorists and insurgents to use their territory to move in and out of Iraq. Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops. We will disrupt the attacks on our forces. We'll interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria. And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2007, Address to the Nation (January 2007)

Barack Obama photo

“There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and there are patriots who supported the war in Iraq. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2004, Democratic National Convention speech (July 2004)

Kim Il-sung photo

“We've always been under sanctions. Even under all those sanctions we have made the growth thus far, so I am not afraid.… If you wish to lift the sanctions then lift them, or if you wish to impose sanctions then impose them. I do not care. We will improve our economy further no matter what.”

Kim Il-sung (1912–1994) President of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea

Source: Remarks to Jimmy Carter (June 1994), as recalled during his final policy meeting and shown in the KCTV documentary The Year 1994

“How few of us have made our individual declaration of independence, and until we do that, we are not free.”

Edwin Manners (1855–1913) American lawyer

Diary entry, 1893-01-02

Hillary Clinton photo

“Our efforts will only succeed if the Arabs and Turks step up in a much bigger way. This is their fight and they need to act like it. So far, however, Turkey has been more focused on the Kurds than on countering ISIS. And to be fair, Turkey has a long and painful history with Kurdish terrorist groups. But the threat from ISIS cannot wait. As difficult as it may be, we need to get Turkey to stop bombing Kurdish fighters in Syria who are battling ISIS and become a full partner of our coalition efforts against ISIS. The United States should also work with our Arab partners to get them more invested in the fight against ISIS. At the moment, they are focused in other areas.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016), Speech on fighting ISIS (November 20, 2015)

“The Federal government of the United States today is guilty of exactly every sort of infringement, abuse, and denial stated as intolerable by the Declaration of Independence. I cannot, in conscience, sanction that government by the payment of taxes.”

Karl Hess (1923–1994) American journalist

Karl Hess, “Letter from Washington: My Taxes,” Libertarian, May 1, 1969, p. 3

İsmail Enver photo

“We can then use Platonic means to quiet Armenians and Greeks, but in time of war we cannot investigate and negotiate. We must act promptly and with determination. I also think that the Armenians are making a mistake in depending upon the Russians. The Russians really would rather see them killed than alive. They are as great a danger to the Russians as they are to us. If they should form an independent government in Turkey, the Armenians in Russia would attempt to form an independent government there.”

İsmail Enver (1881–1922) Turkish military officer and a leader of the Young Turk revolution

Quoted in "The Armenians, from Genocide to Resistance: From Genocide to Resistance" - Page 81 - by Gérard Chaliand, Yves Ternon - Social Science – 1983.

Dick Cheney photo

“Because if we had gone to Baghdad we would have been all alone. There wouldn't have been anybody else with us. It would have been a U. S. occupation of Iraq. None of the Arab forces that were willing to fight with us in Kuwait were willing to invade Iraq. Once you got to Iraq and took it over and took down Saddam Hussein's government, then what are you going to put in its place? That's a very volatile part of the world. And if you take down the central government in Iraq, you could easily end up seeing pieces of Iraq fly off. Part of it the Syrians would like to have, the west. Part of eastern Iraq the Iranians would like to claim. Fought over for eight years. In the north, you've got the Kurds. And if the Kurds spin loose and join with Kurds in Turkey, then you threaten the territorial integrity of Turkey. It's a quagmire if you go that far and try to take over Iraq. The other thing is casualties. Everyone was impressed with the fact that we were able to do our job with as few casualties as we had, but for the 146 Americans killed in action and for the families it wasn't a cheap war. And the question for the president in terms of whether or not we went on to Baghdad and took additional casualties in an effort to get Saddam Hussein was, how many additional dead Americans is Saddam worth? And our judgment was not very many, and I think we got it right.”

Dick Cheney (1941) American politician and businessman

Cheney, on not pushing on to Baghdad during the first Gulf War; C-SPAN 4-15-94 Interview on CNN http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0708/13/sitroom.03.html
1990s

Related topics