“Diplomacy is the inception and the end of war”

“When diplomacy ends, War begins.”

“All war represents a failure of diplomacy.”

“Only professional diplomats, inveterate idiots and women view diplomacy as a long-term substitute for war.”

“Anyone who has ever studied the history of American diplomacy, especially military diplomacy, knows that you might start in a war with certain things on your mind as a purpose of what you are doing, but in the end, you found yourself fighting for entirely different things that you had never thought of before ... In other words, war has a momentum of its own and it carries you away from all thoughtful intentions when you get into it. Today, if we went into Iraq, like the president would like us to do, you know where you begin. You never know where you are going to end.”

“The United States tried, by depressing the clutch of diplomacy and downshifting the gearshift lever of rhetoric, to remain neutral, but it became increasingly obvious that the nation was going to get into a war, especially since it was almost 1812.”