The absence of Saddam is a huge weight off the Arab world.

It's 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 secure the surrender of Saddam's security forces and his army. Hard to imagine.

We did not go to war in Afghanistan or in Iraq to, quote, 'impose democracy.' We went to war in both places because we saw those regimes as a threat to the United States.

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

It's a very bad thing when people exterminate other people, and people persecute minorities.

The Bernie Sanders phenomenon shows that it's not confined to Republicans. There is a general sentiment that America is on the wrong track.

It would be a huge mistake to abandon democracy promotion. Peaceful political change has been enormously successful in the past years in Eastern European countries as well as in countries like South Korea, South Africa, Chile and Indonesia. However, if possible, the use of force is something to avoid except in cases where genocide is threatened, like Bosnia or Libya or with regimes that threaten our security, like the Taliban and Saddam Hussein.