My father was somewhat to the right of Genghis Khan.

I believe that sooner or later we're going to have to deal with Saddam Hussein, because of his general reputation, because of what I'm convinced he's done with regard to terrorism and the support thereof. But I'm not at all sure I believe that it has to be right now.

The question really is how do we get Embassy Officers into the minds of the American business community. That is a much more difficult task than understanding a statistical matrix.

Americans usually believe that nothing is impossible.

If you take a look at Afghan history, usually they have united to defend against an outside enemy, and as soon as that's accomplished, they turn and start killing each other. This internal instability is a constant invitation to outside forces to come in. I have to think that after the awful years of the Taliban, most Afghans would want to remain at peace, and get the benefits of the new freedom they've found. But I can't be sure that old habits won't reassert themselves.

The consequence of a world full of nuclear powers to me is so incomprehensible in terms of the dangers that that implies.

If George Bush [Jr.] decided he was going to turn the troops loose on Syria and Iran after that he would last in office for about 15 minutes. In fact if President Bush were to try that now even I would think that he ought to be impeached. You can't get away with that sort of thing in this democracy.