There are plenty of meetings, receptions, dinners, and so if you are [at the U.N.] any length of time, and I was there for four and a half years, you formed pretty significant relationships with people from all over the world. And that's important to the work you do. If you're trying to rally the General Assembly to vote for something that matters to the United States, those personal relationships count.

The youth thing never really, from my vantage point, slowed me down. I think the harder audience for me to gain acceptance from was the career diplomatic corps that worked with and for me in the Africa Bureau.

Iran's arms exports to the murderous Assad regime in Syria are of particular concern. As the Panel of Experts has concluded, Syria is now the central party to illicit Iranian arms transfers.

We also have begun to assess with the Ukrainians the scope of their larger security assistance requirements. We have had teams out making that assessment with the Ukrainians. And we have already provided various forms of equipment and support to Ukraine.

Nobody's tried to touch my hair in like, in decades.

I was working with a number of African heads of state. And after their initial surprise, I think many of them just treated me as they would anybody else. They had to deal with me as a representative of the United States of America, and the United States of America was too important to be dismissed or ignored on any grounds.

In this day and age, the U.S. and Europe do not have the luxury of focusing solely on a single region.