The Western alliance should have supported the Sunni opposition against the Assad regime from the beginning. As far as Iraq is concerned, if it had stayed stable the way it was in 2008, IS would not have been able to expand in Iraq the way they did. The mistake was that Barack Obama withdrew the armed forces from Iraq too fast.

I think all foreigners should stop interfering in the internal affairs of Iraq. Those who want to come and help are welcome. Those who come to interfere and destroy are not.

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.

Iraq has no history of ethnic conflict.

People change their habits. I know Americans who don't go to Paris because they think it is too dangerous.

Putin is behaving in a very dangerous way. And Donald Trump sounds as though he would simply sit back and allow that to go on. I worry about where that would end up.

If a cat sits on a hot stove once, it will never sit on a cold one either.