A biography for Ben Rhodeshasn’t been written yet.
“Mandela was a guy who didn't come in and just eviscerate the existing institutions. He sought to co-opt them. He brought white South Africans into his government.”
“'Make America great again,' is not that different from Putin's nostalgia for the Soviet Union or tsarist Russia.”
“Our Cuba policy was a major obstacle to getting things done in the hemisphere and a source of tension around the world.”
“In the course of a presidency, a U.S. president says millions of words in public. You never know which of them end up cementing a certain impression.”
“The events of my twenties felt historic, but the people involved did not. I wanted a hero - someone who could make sense of what was happening around me and in some way redeem it.”
“Billions of people around the globe had come to know Barack Obama, had heard his words, had watched his speeches, and, in some unknowable but irreducible way, had come to see the world as a place that could - in some incremental way - change.”
“I think one of the critiques of me is that I thought I knew it all. But I was learning from the enormous resources available within the U.S. government who have a very different view of the world than many of the people commenting on foreign policy from outside of the government.”
“Havana is a source of great pride to the Cuban people.”
“Cuba is only 90 miles from Florida, but for a long time, the distance between our two countries seemed a lot greater.”
“In the Arab Spring, that obviously came to a head in Syria. I found myself arguing for intervention, mainly just because I wanted things to get better, and I had this germ of liberal humanitarian interventionism.”
“Cuba has long played an outsized role in the world's imagination.”
“I found people I really wanted to work for; I made myself available to do whatever I could with the skills I had; I took some risk, packing up and moving to Chicago; and I looked for the opportunities that fit for me. So I think the biggest advice is to find people you love to work for who you're going to learn from.”
“In China, you just don't have the space for civil society and independent discourse and free media that you do in India. That's why India's success is so important as the world's largest democracy.”
“Where civil society is welcomed, communities are more safe, more secure, and more prosperous.”
“I profoundly do not believe that the United States could make things better in Syria by being there. And we have an evidentiary record of what happens when we're there - nearly a decade in Iraq.”
“U.S. leadership has been rooted not just in our own belief in American exceptionalism but in the faith of others around the world. By so wantonly discarding that principle, the Trump Administration has done incredible harm to the families they have separated through the state-sponsored child abuse that has been carried out in our name.”
“In addition to deep divisions on issues such as trade, climate change, Middle East peace and nuclear weapons, Trump's attacks on leaders such as Trudeau and Merkel and disrespect for NATO and other institutions are prompting a reassessment by allied governments and publics.”
“The U.S.-Israel relationship is so important.”
“We have enormous interests in the Asia Pacific. In addition to our economy, we need to secure our allies, protect our environment, promote peace and stability, ensure the free-flow of commerce, and stand up for human rights.”
“If we're going to play a role in shaping a future that is more secure, more prosperous, and more connected, we need to make sure that young people have the tools they need to succeed.”