I think that America is a part of the world, that we want to cooperate with the world. We are not the dominant power in the world, that everyone falls in behind us. But we want to reach out and cooperate.

But figuring out Saddam Hussein was one our greatest mysteries. He marched to his own drummer and frequently as this unfolded he made decisions which were sometimes inexplicable to us and sometimes didn't look very smart.

But there is scant evidence to tie Saddam to terrorist organizations, and even less to the Sept. 11 attacks.

But, if you believe we should go around the world overturning regimes to make little United States, I don't agree with that, because I don't think we're capable of doing that.

America has never seen itself as a national state like all others, but rather as an experiment in human freedom and democracy.

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.

The art of diplomacy is to take an opportunity and turn it into something.