Diplomacy is not an end in itself if it does not advance U.S. interests.

I'm a conservative Republican. I have been since I was 15 years old and participated in the 'Goldwater for President' campaign in 1964.

I think the Russians basically don't think the North Koreans and the Iranians have the capabilities to get weapon systems that can threaten them, or that if they do the Russians know how to handle them and that that's the reason that it's all the more important that Russians be involved in the sale of high-end conventional weapons, the Bushehr nuclear reactor in the case of Russia and Iran, and similar kinds of relationships.

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.

I think the International Criminal Court could be a threat to American security interests, because the prosecutor of the court has enormous discretion in going after war crimes. And the way the Statute of Rome is written, responsibility for war crimes can be taken all the way up the chain of command. This is the sort of investigation that some people who live in Fairyland might like to undertake, but which bears no relationship at all to conditions in the real world.

If Iran obtains nuclear weapons, then almost certainly Saudi Arabia will do the same, as will Egypt, Turkey and perhaps others in the region.

You have to negotiate from positions of strength. And right now with Iran, we're not negotiating from a position of strength. The Europeans are negotiating from the position of "Please give up your nuclear weapons program, and by the way if you do we'll give you several boatloads of carrots." The Iranians are quite willing to keep on negotiating on that line for a long time.