The United States can't impose democracies. We can't impose our will. The Russians found that out in Afghanistan.

Engagement is not appeasement. Engagement is not surrender.

I don't think it's a matter of going back and having a review of our process. Our process is about as thorough as there can be. Is it imperfect? Yes. Is there risk? Yes, but we start with the fact that we have an American that's being held hostage and that American's life is in danger and that's where we start. And then we proceed from there.

Peace comes through dealing with people. Peace doesn't come at the end of a bayonet or the end of a gun.

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.

There has to be a reason and objective (to air strikes). What does it do to move the effort down the road for a political conversation?

We live in a world of absolute immediacy. It is an interconnected, combustible world, where technology and many other actions have given nonstate actors a reach, into countries and societies, for both good and evil, that we have never seen before. So it isn't a matter of just state versus state challenges or conflict. The bigger problem is nonstate actors.