What we want for the Iranian people is control over their own government, which they don't have now. So you would do it through supplying resources and support from the outside to the indigenous people who are already quite unhappy. The mullahs have made hash of the economy since 1979, there's a huge amount of economic dissatisfaction. The young people, who are pretty well educated and sophisticated, know they could have a better life than this strict Islamic law.

I'm obviously aware that people are quite focused on the economy rather than foreign policy issues, but that is something that should and can be altered as people see the nature of the threats around the world that we face.

Everybody pursues their national interests. The only one who gets blamed for it is the United States.

A strong State Department to me means a corps of career officials who believe that their job is to advocate America's interests and who are trained in effective advocacy, not schooled in accommodation.

Our biggest national security crisis is Barack Obama.

A lot of people have said to me, 'That's a great idea, running for president. You'll get booked for more speeches. You can write a book.'

You don't need to spend tens of millions of dollars on political consultants to tell you what you think when you already know what you think.