Islamic State is mainly a direct result of the failure in Syria. That's where IS has grown. That's where IS spread from.

The most striking thing is that even before Osama bin Laden was killed, he seemed largely irrelevant to the Arab Spring.

People seem to forget that Saddam was the only leader in the world who praised the attacks of 9/11 as a good thing.

History is just littered with problems that were solved that were supposed to be impossible.

After a regime is removed, however, it is dangerous to leave a security vacuum.

I think one has to say it's not just simply a matter of capturing people and holding them accountable, but removing the sanctuaries, removing the support systems...

There has been a good deal of comment — some of it quite outlandish — about what our postwar requirements might be in Iraq. Some of the higher end predictions we have been hearing recently, such as the notion that it will take several hundred thousand U.S. troops to provide stability in post- Iraq, are wildly off the mark. It is hard to conceive that it would take more forces to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq than it would take to conduct the war itself and to secure the surrender of Saddam's security forces and his army — hard to imagine.