Ilan Berman quotes

If history's any judge, you might have democratic leanings in a revolution but that doesn't necessarily mean that the revolution is going to end up with democratic results.
-- Ilan Berman

#Mean #Judging #Revolution

Demographics don't lie, economies don't lie. When the median age of your population is twenty-four-years-old and a quarter of the working population's unemployed - this is not a recipe for success.
-- Ilan Berman

#Lying #Age #Economy

Social media is important, but it does not bring down governments. Governments can shut down the Internet. Governments can control media access. If they do what the Tunisians did and try and negotiate with the opposition, then the media's still open, the international community can learn what's happening in the country, and then that can provide inspiration. But in mid-2009, the Iranian regime just shut down the Internet. Facebook went dark. Twitter went dark. BBC Persian, Voice of America, Persian News Network all went dark. That was it.
-- Ilan Berman

#Country #Inspiration #Dark

The fundamental truth is that the guys with the guns matter more than most.
-- Ilan Berman

#Gun #Guy #Truth Is

One of the things that makes me the most nervous is that the Middle East has historically had a sense of predictability. You may have a terrorist incident or you may have a revisionist regime like the Iranians, but on the whole, the region is twenty countries. On the whole, you go to bed and you wake up and you have a pretty good idea that most of those twenty are doing just fine, you don't have to pay attention to them. There's some stuff going on but you don't have to worry about a governmental overthrow that will suddenly force you to evacuate your embassies.
-- Ilan Berman

#Country #Worry #Attention

The pattern of a newspaperman's life is like the plot of 'Black Beauty.' Sometimes he finds a kind master who gives him a dry stall and an occasional bran mash in the form of a Christmas bonus, sometimes he falls into the hands of a mean owner who drives him in spite of spavins and expects him to live on potato peelings.

We're not going to survive in this world, temporally or spiritually, without increased faith in the Lord-and I don't mean a positive mental attitude-I mean downright solid faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. That is the one thing that gives vitality and power to otherwise rather weak individuals.

So with truth - there is a certain moment when one can say, this is the truth and here I put a dot, a stop, and I go to another thing. A judge has to put an end to a deliberation. But for a historian, theres never an end to the past. It can go on and on and on.

Our constitution, in short, is a judge-made constitution, and it bears on its face all the features, good and bad, of judge-made law.

Youth is ever apt to judge in haste, and lose the medium in the wild extreme.

After the French Revolution, it was not the treason of the king that was in question; it was the existence of the king. You have to be very careful when you judge and execute somebody for being a symbol.

A decision by the Fuhrer in the express form of a law or a decree may not be scrutinized by a judge. In addition, the judge is bound by any other decision of the Fuhrer.

You know, you look at the chaos in the conservative camp right now, it's only too tempting to blame it all on pot. But in fact, the Reagan revolution owes a lot to Reefer. For one thing, it's made the symptoms of senility socially acceptable.

If today I stand here as a revolutionary, it is as a revolutionary against the Revolution.

Our countrymen have all the folly of the ***** and all the passiveness of the sheep.