Thomas Friedman

"Only if you give the Palestinians something to lose is there a hope that they will agree to moderate their demands.… I believe that as soon as Ahmed has a seat in the bus, he will limit his demands."

"The Golden Straitjacket is the defining political-economic garment of this globalization era.... The tighter you wear it, the more gold it produces."

"Like it or not, we are at war with the Serbian nation (the Serbs certainly think so), and the stakes have to be very clear: Every week you ravage Kosovo is another decade we will set your country back by pulverizing you. You want 1950? We can do 1950. You want 1389? We can do 1389 too."

"The historical debate is over. The answer is free-market capitalism. Other systems may be able to distribute and divide income more efficiently and equitably, but none can generate income to distribute as efficiently as free-market capitalism."

"The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist. McDonalds cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas, the designer of the F-15. And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valleys technologies to flourish is called the US Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps."

"Chinas going to have a free press.... Oh, Chinas leaders dont know it yet, but they are being pushed straight in that direction."

"After two years of traveling almost exclusively to Western Europe and the Middle East, Poland feels like a geopolitical spa. I visited here for just three days and got two years of anti-American bruises massaged out of me. Get this: people here actually tell you they like America—without whispering. What has gotten into these people? Have all their subscriptions to Le Monde Diplomatique expired? Havent they gotten the word from Berlin and Paris? No, they havent. In fact, Poland is the antidote to European anti-Americanism. Poland is to France what Advil is to a pain in the neck. Or as Michael Mandelbaum, the Johns Hopkins foreign affairs specialist, remarked after visiting Poland: "Poland is the most pro-American country in the world—including the United States."

"We need to send the message that anyone who orders suicide bombings against Americans, or protects those who do, commits suicide himself. And U.S. marines will search every cave in Afghanistan to make that principle stick. You order, you die—absolutely, positively, you die."

"No two countries that both have a McDonalds have ever fought a war against each other.... The question raised by the McDonalds example is whether there is a tip-over point at which a country, by integrating with the global economy, opening itself up to foreign investment and empowering its consumers, permanently restricts its capacity for troublemaking and promotes gradual democratization and widening peace."

"Reading Europes press, it is really reassuring to see how warmly Europeans have embraced President Bushs formulation that an "axis of evil" threatens world peace. Theres only one small problem. President Bush thinks the axis of evil is Iran, Iraq and North Korea, and the Europeans think its Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and Condi Rice."

"You win the presidency by connecting with the American peoples gut insecurities and aspirations. You win with a concept. The concept Id argue for is "neoliberalism." More Americans today are natural neolibs, than neocons. Neoliberals believe in a muscular foreign policy and a credible defense budget, but also a prudent fiscal policy that balances taxes, deficit reduction and government services."

"Sooner or later, Mr. Bush argued, sanctions would force Mr. Husseins generals to bring him down, and then Washington would have the best of all worlds: an iron-fisted Iraqi junta without Saddam Hussein."