There the Bush Administration has offered only a merry-go-round policy. They got up on their high horse, whooped and hollered, rode around in circles and ended right back where they'd started.

These guys [Republicans] are the most crooked, you know, lying group I've ever seen.

We have to create a process which has legitimacy for the people of Syria. And we have to have a process where the Russians and the Iranians and the neighbors - all of them, Saudis, Turks, Qataris, a very complicated brew - that you have to bring them together and they can find agreement. That's the fundamental premise of the Geneva Communique that you will have, by mutual consent, a process of transition.

The measurement in this race is not where you come from, it is "what do you fight for."

Regime change has been an American policy under the Clinton administration, and it is the current policy. I support the policy. But regime change in and of itself is not sufficient justification for going to war--particularly unilaterally--unless regime change is the only way to disarm Iraq of the weapons of mass destruction pursuant to the United Nations resolution.

If the threat is jihadism - and it is - and the threat is the destruction of Syria so that all of these refugees are swamping into Europe and changing the whole character and politics of Europe, this is the time to unite to find a way out.

My hope is the Trump administration will approach Russia strategically, with a clear purpose of trying to find more common ground, but without giving up on fundamental values and principles that are at the core of the United States' foreign policy.