There's clearly something to be said for success and following through on your commitments.

It took us 50 months in Germany, post World War II to go from the end of the war to a national election.

We would like to have friendly regimes with enough broad participation of their populations to maintain long-term stability, so that we would have not only access to the region's wealth, but we would be able to ensure the security of our good friend Israel.

There's clearly something to be said for success and following through on your commitments.

Policymakers have to make judgments based on the best intelligence they get.

So, I think even in Saudi Arabia there is movement. And we have to remember that over the years they've stabilized the oil price and that is tremendously important for the economies of the world. I think we have no choice but to work with the government of Saudi Arabia.

Putin has a lot at stake here and restoring the relationship with the United States, and there are already signs as Sandy mentioned that he's moving in the right direction to begin to ascertain that their trade with Iran is not used for the production of nuclear weapons.