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It is like our foreign policy has attention deficit disorder.

Often, foreign policy - which, by definition, is largely out of American control - is simply a matter of not doing the wrong thing, the unwise thing.

My view of foreign policy is that we need to be careful and circumspect about United States intervention in any foreign nation.

Too often in Washington we tend to see foreign policy as an abstraction, with little understanding of what we are committing our country to: the complications and consequences of endeavors.

This is the devilish thing about foreign affairs: they are foreign and will not always conform to our whim.

This is the very devilish thing about foreign affairs: they are foreign and will not always conform to our whim.

First of all, the world criticizes American foreign policy because Americans criticize American foreign policy. We shouldn't be surprised about that. Criticizing government is a God-given right - at least in democracies.

Foreign policy is all about a universe of bad decisions, imperfect decisions; every situation is different. The dynamics, the atmospherics, the people, the pressures, the geopolitical realities shift.

I consider myself to be as informed on American foreign policy as anyone in America.

Foreign policy is effectively the assertion of many individual countries intersecting on the global marketplace. And you have to figure out how to get your interest served in a way that meets the interests and needs of these other folks.