“One of the reasons we are involved there is because it is within the strategic interests and national interests of the United States that the conflict be resolved. I do think that we have to stay involved because our interest is at stake, and a principal point is that an eruption of violence or some other negative act could occur at any time with unforeseeable consequences,” Mitchell added.
if there were a breakdown, including, god forbid, an eruption of violence, that there is no way that the United States would stand aside and let them take the consequences; the demands by the parties, by other countries in the region and indeed by the entire world, for U.S. action to try to deal with the consequences, would be high, and appropriately so, and I think that any president would not simply stand by and let a conflict erupt.”
