Strong leadership demands more than the willingness to use force. It means directing the use of the right tools at the right time for the right purpose and the right cause.

We do have to take the long-term view. And long term, the question to ask ourselves is whether America should attack others pre-emptively, whether she should embroil herself in wars far away from our soil, and try to bring democracy by force to the rest of the world.

Great challenges confront our great nation. We seek to meet them by rising to the task, not by defining our country down.

I will never cede the authority of our country or our security to any other nation. I'll never give a veto over American security to any other entity - not a nation, not a country, not an institution.

We need to talk to all the players in the Middle East, not because we agree with them, but because they play a role.

War on terror is far less of a military operation and far more of an intelligence-gathering, law-enforcement operation.

Assassination, kidnappings and suicide attacks have become too much the standard operating procedure in the Islamic world. So much so that the name of Islam itself has been diminished in the eyes of many people. It is the responsibility of all of us, and particularly those in the Islamic world who care about their religion, to rescue it from its increased association with violence.