Daily Inspiration Quote by Douglas Feith

A sentence built to sound diplomatic while doing blunt political work. Feith’s formulation splits “Europe” into two convenient piles: the few you can dismiss and the many you can claim. It’s the rhetoric of coalition-building by arithmetic, not persuasion. By saying “some people…with whom we disagree” and “a large number…with whom we agree,” he turns a contested transatlantic argument into a matter of scale, as if legitimacy is simply the bigger headcount.

The intent is twofold: minimize visible opposition and preempt the charge of American unilateralism. Feith doesn’t name the dissenters, which matters. Vagueness keeps the listener from picturing Paris and Berlin as concrete obstacles; “some people” sounds like background noise. Then he widens the circle of approval to include “governments,” a crucial upgrade from friendly commentators or minor parties. It’s an appeal to institutional endorsement without the burden of specifying who, exactly, is on board.

Contextually, this is the language of the early 2000s split over Iraq, when “Europe” was being rhetorically re-mapped into “old” and “new.” The subtext: the countries that disagree are not only wrong, they’re not representative. Feith’s sentence is a pressure tactic dressed as reassurance: if you’re skeptical, you’re being asked to see yourself as part of a shrinking, cranky minority while history moves forward with the “large number” already on the right side.