Acting alone in a world that's alive in political stirring is to condemn oneself to isolation and probably protracted warfare of the kind that can be dissipating.

Russia can be either an empire or a democracy, but it cannot be both. . . . Without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be an empire, but with Ukraine suborned and then subordinated, Russia automatically becomes an empire.

The United States wants to be part of the solution to its problems and not, in part, the maker of their problems.

For people of different faiths to coexist, it's going to take maturity, wisdom, and patience. All of which come, eventually, with tolerance. And it's a process of time.

We look a little bit disorderly, indecisive, leaderless. That's a real problem, and that's a problem that concerns me particularly on foreign affairs. The presidency, not just President Obama, but the presidency in recent years has lost some of the terrain that they used to dominate in the making of foreign policy. I think President Obama has to make a serious effort to regain it because he lost some of it himself.

America has exercised its power to insist on elections in Palestine, which Hamas did win. Once they won, we then engaged in a policy not only of ostracism, but by financial boycott, in effect of undermining it, and creating more tension and radicalism and poverty in Gaza, which was susceptible to exploitation by Hamas.

There is an element of paranoia in this inclination to view any serious attempt at a compromised peace as somehow directed against Israel.