Daily Inspiration Quote by Brent Scowcroft

“First of all” is doing quiet but heavy lifting here: Scowcroft is ordering the conversation, signaling that whatever comes next should be read through a security-first lens, not a moral or ideological one. As a career national security hand, he’s less interested in litigating blame than in mapping incentives. The line sounds like a plain briefing sentence, but it’s a diplomatic nudge disguised as observation.

The intent is to reposition Saudi Arabia in the listener’s mind. In American discourse, the Saudis are often cast as either oil-price tacticians or religious hardliners. Scowcroft offers a more pragmatic portrait: Riyadh as a regime that fears regional instability because instability invites domestic pressure, radicalization, and unpredictable spillover. “Deeply concerned” is also calibrated language. It doesn’t mean “heartbroken.” It means “this threatens our strategic architecture.”

The subtext: Saudi “concern” is leverage. If negotiations collapse and violence resumes, the U.S. loses a key argument for Arab partners to cooperate openly with Israel or align closely with Washington. Conflict reactivates public opinion across the Arab world, forcing leaders who prefer quiet coordination to perform solidarity. It also gives Iran and non-state actors a propaganda gift: proof that diplomacy is a sham and resistance is the only currency.

Context matters. Scowcroft spoke from the post-Cold War, Gulf War-shaped worldview where the Israeli-Palestinian track wasn’t a side issue; it was the region’s pressure valve. His sentence is a warning about cascading consequences, delivered in the understated register of someone who expects adults in the room to recognize the fire code before the building ignites.