Jonathan Powell Quotations

Since the beginning of time, we have expected our leaders to be supermen, unlike mere mortals. We want them to be much greater than us so that we can look up to them.

Politicians do not enter into wars lightly. It is usually the military themselves who are keener to become involved.

I do not think that war is always wrong: sometimes it is necessary to stop a dictator, prevent massive human-rights abuses, or expel an invader. But I have also seen that in the modern world, civil wars are the greatest threat to humanitarian security.

I am firmly of the view we should keep the police out of politics in Britain, or we risk going the way of American politics, where the Whitewater investigation lasted virtually the whole of the two terms of the Clinton administration but turned up nothing.

If you are going to make peace, you can't just meet nice people.

There is no conflict in the world that cannot be solved.

Terrorism seems to be the ugly twin of democracy. We need to learn to live with it because we are vulnerable to it.

Terrorism is resorted to for practical reasons because there is no other tool available. And those who use terrorism, and then subsequently become the targets of terrorism, understand its power and how difficult it is to counter it. Not just militarily. But especially in terms of international perception.

Maybe strong leaders are not quite as alluring as we think, and we should celebrate the fact that our leaders are just like us. Just because one candidate can't remember his whole speech and the other likes to put his feet up on the job doesn't mean they can't govern.

When it comes to terrorism, governments seem to suffer from a collective amnesia. All of our historical experience tells us that there can be no purely military solution to a political problem, and yet every time we confront a new terrorist group, we begin by insisting we will never talk to them.

Every time we meet a new terrorist group, we argue they are utterly different and we can learn nothing from the last time. Of course they are different, but some lessons on how we deal with them seem to apply in all cases.

I started off in radio, then made little films for Granada. I applied for a job at 'Weekend World,' and they turned me down; I'd also applied to the Foreign Office, which accepted me.

It was the rootlessness that went with being the son of an RAF officer that shaped me. I had been to 11 schools by the time I was 9.

Northern Ireland still suffers from its past, and it will take generations to escape sectarianism and for violence to end totally. Nonetheless, it is in a different place now than during the Troubles, and it will not go back to the old days.

You should never appease terrorists. The mistake made by critics of the 'talking to your enemy' approach is to equate talking with appeasing.

You can't negotiate in public. People won't make concessions in public. They will do that in private. Like sausage making, you have to do it behind closed doors.

There seems to be a sense in the British media that prime ministers enjoy going to war. They do not. The decision to send British soldiers into battle is the worst and most stomach-churning senior politicians have to take. It makes them wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat worrying if they have done the right thing.

A peace agreement isn't like a fairy story. You don't live happily ever after.

The Israeli people are skeptical about the chances of a long-term peace, but if they saw it, they'd grab it. Any Israeli government that wants to be reelected should be interested in a lasting peace.

I'm a solid Labour party supporter. I aspired to be a Labour MP, but it's difficult to make the leap from the Foreign Office.

If there is a political cause, then there has to be a political solution.

I'd love to have a proper sailing boat and go around the world.

All the things I've done are about duty and guilt: trying to do your best to better other people's lives.