[Quotes] US presidents on politics, peace and prosperity

As the White House prepares for its 44th president, AlArabiya.net looks back at what some of America's former presidents had to say during their time in the Oval Office that might provide inspiration on Middle East affairs, diplomacy and governing for the new president elect.

George W. Bush

"Every nation in every region now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists."

"We will stand up for our friends in the world. And one of the most important friends is the State of Israel. My administration will be steadfast in support Israel against terrorism and violence, and in seeking the peace for which all Israelis pray."

"I sent American troops to Iraq to make its people free, not to make them American. Iraqis will write their own history and find their own way."

Bill Clinton

"American and Israel share a special bond. Our relationship is unique among all nations. Like America, Israel is a strong democracy, a symbol of freedom, and an oasis of liberty, a home to the oppressed and persecuted."

"Throughout the Middle East, there is a great yearning for the quiet miracle of a normal life."

"If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program."

George H. W. Bush

"I can tell you this: If I'm ever in a position to call the shots, I'm not going to rush to send somebody else's kids into a war."

"We have in this past year made great progress in ending the long era of conflict and cold war. We have before us the opportunity to forge for ourselves and for future generations a new world order."

"Gulf Lesson One is the value of airpower."

Ronald Reagan

"The greatest security for Israel is to create new Egypts."

"The government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it."

"Status quo, you know, that is Latin for 'the mess we’re in.'"

Jimmy Carter

"I thought then, and I think now, that the invasion of Iraq was unnecessary and unjust. And I think the premises on which it was launched were false."

"I don't think that Israel has any legal or moral justification for their massive bombing of the entire nation of Lebanon."

"We are completely in bed with the Israelis to the detriment of the wellbeing of the Palestinians."

Richard Nixon

"Americans admire a people who can scratch a desert and produce a garden. The Israelis have shown qualities that Americans identify with: guts, patriotism, idealism, a passion for freedom. I have seen it. I know. I believe that."

"The greatest honor history can bestow is that of peacemaker."

"Any change is resisted because bureaucrats have a vested interest in the chaos in which they exist."

Lyndon B. Johnson

"Our society is illuminated by the spiritual insights of the Hebrew prophets. America and Israel have a common love of human freedom, and they have a common faith in a democratic way of life."

"The atomic bomb certainly is the most powerful of all weapons, but it is conclusively powerful and effective only in the hands of the nation which controls the sky."

John F. Kennedy

"Israel was not created in order to disappear - Israel will endure and flourish. It is the child of hope and the home of the brave. It can neither be broken by adversity nor demoralized by success. It carries the shield of democracy and it honors the sword of freedom."

"It is an unfortunate fact that we can secure peace only by preparing for war."

"When written in Chinese, the word "crisis" is composed of two characters. One represents danger and the other represents opportunity."

Dwight Eisenhower

"Our forces saved the remnants of the Jewish people of Europe for a new life and a new hope in the reborn land of Israel. Along with all men of good will, I salute the young state and wish it well."

"I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it."

"Though force can protect in emergency, only justice, fairness, consideration and cooperation can finally lead men to the dawn of eternal peace."

Harry Truman

"I had faith in Israel before it was established, I have in it now. I believe it has a glorious future before it - not just another sovereign nation, but as an embodiment of the great ideals of our civilization."

"Experience has shown how deeply the seeds of war are planted by economic rivalry and social injustice."

Franklin D. Roosevelt

"Don't forget what I discovered that over ninety percent of all national
deficits from 1921 to 1939 were caused by payments for past, present, and future wars."

"The point in history at which we stand is full of promise and danger. The world will either move forward toward unity and widely shared prosperity - or it will move apart."

"Whoever seeks to set one religion against another seeks to destroy all religion."

Theodore Roosevelt

"A typical vice of American politics is the avoidance of saying anything real on real issues."

"I wish that all Americans would realize that American politics is world politics."

"There were all kinds of things I was afraid of at first, ranging from grizzly bears to 'mean' horses and gun-fighters; but by acting as if I was not afraid I gradually ceased to be afraid."

Abraham Lincoln

"Allow the president to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such a purpose - and you allow him to make war at pleasure."

"Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable - a most sacred right - a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world."

"The assertion that "all men are created equal" was of no practical use in effecting our separation from Great Britain and it was placed in the Declaration not for that, but for future use."

Thomas Jefferson

"A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine."

"I sincerely believe that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale."

"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."

George Washington

"To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace."

"My first wish is to see this plague of mankind, war, banished from the earth."

"It may be laid down as a primary position, and the basis of our system, that every Citizen who enjoys the protection of a Free Government, owes not only a proportion of his property, but even of his personal services to the defense of it."