After the '30s, we said, "no more Munichs." And it got us in a lot of problems. Then we said, "No more Vietnams." Now if we say, "No more Iraqs," the next one won't be an Iraq. It will be something different. You can't learn lessons.

After all, we didn't bring democracy to Germany in 1945; Hitler destroyed democracy there first.

To sum up, the position we took was that since we didn't know the internal situation in Iraq nor Saddam Hussein, that our best bet was to take counsel from the people who did know him and who did deal with him.

Who is the guarantor, if there is one, of a more stable world? It's the United States.

Because national borders are eroding, because of the growth of non-state actors. It's a different kind of a world. We are tied down by a tiny little country - Iraq. It's amazing, given the disparity in military economic strength. It's a world where most of the big problems spill over national boundaries, and there are new kinds of actors and we're feeling our way as to how to deal with them.

I think above all, what we need with Iran is patience.

Much of what we know about mathematics and trade comes from the Arabs. Then came stagnation, and now they're the West's whipping boy. This is a problem that cannot be solved overnight, and certainly not militarily.