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

Progress is only possible if the United States and its allies work together.

I think there's nothing more dangerous than mislearning lessons of history, and we do it perpetually.

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.

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.

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

Since the days of Peter the Great, Russians have been maybe Europeans who didn't share in the enlightenment and the reformation, or are they Mongol Asians with the European veneer. And they've gone back and forth.