I'm a supporter of Israel, always have been.

We must prepare for everything.

I'm the first secretary of defense that's had to deal with sequestration. I've prepared two budgets that deal with sequestration. And you bring the chiefs together, the leadership of this enterprise together, to work through, how do we then take these cuts? Where do we apply those cuts? Readiness is the first thing that suffers.

It's critically important that we have governments to work with, that we have entities to work with. President Hadi has been a good partner in that, and we would hope that the next set of leaders that govern Yemen will also take the same approach to cooperation with the United States.

Foreign policy is all about a universe of bad decisions, imperfect decisions; every situation is different. The dynamics, the atmospherics, the people, the pressures, the geopolitical realities shift.

If America is to succeed in responding to these 21st Century challenges, our political system cannot continue to bog down in the mire of partisan gamesmanship.

There's always a balance, I think, any administration has to find in not just the military but in any agency of government.