America's still a very, very powerful symbol and a very important place of leadership for the world.

I didn't run for student council president. I don't see myself in any way in elected office. I love policy. I'm not particularly fond of politics.

There are some places that have had real quarrels with the United States' policies, but I think the country is very well-respected worldwide.

It was actually fun to write [memoir], because I went back to interview people my parents had taught or who had worked with them, and I learned a lot about them that I hadn't known.

I believe that the Iraqis have an opportunity now, without Saddam Hussein there, to build the first multiconfessional Arab democracy in the Middle East. And that will make for a different kind of Middle East. And these things take time. History has a long arc, not a short one. And there are going to be ups and downs, and it is going to take patience by the United States and by Iraq's neighbors to help the Iraqis to do that. But if they succeed, it'll transform the Middle East, and that's worth doing.

If you're always in the company of people who agree with you, you're going to think of people who don't agree with you as venal or stupid. I constantly tell my students that if they're in the company of people who always say "amen" to what you say, find other company. And that is the source of illiberalism, when you are unable to listen to someone who thinks differently. That's when democracies are in trouble.

There was no silver bullet that could have prevented the 11 September attacks. There was nothing demonstrating or showing that something was coming in the United States. If there had been something, we would have acted on it.