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Two presidents pursued human rights policies that were serious and effective: Reagan and George W. Bush. They understood that American support for human rights activists is a moral imperative for us and also makes the world safer for us.

Now in its third year in office, the Obama Administration has never championed the cause of human rights. Its slow reaction in June 2009 to the stealing of the election in Iran and the birth of the 'Green Movement' there, and its delay in backing the rebellions in Egypt, Libya, and Syria, are evidence of this problem.

Ronald Reagan, who led the larger New Right project of re-sanctifying U.S. foreign policy after its Vietnam disaccreditation, felt compelled to drape his support for Central American death squads in the rhetoric of American exceptionalism.

The United States came out of the 1990s, if anything, in an even greater position of hegemony and preeminence than it was at the beginning of the 1990s.

In the long march of history, at least two poles of attraction and antagonism have been the norm in world politics. Rarely has only one nation carried the burden of leadership. The unipolar world of the 21st century, dominated for the past two decades by the United States, is a historical anomaly.

I don't think we would have had to be an occupying power if we had done the right thing in 1991.

I think there is a failure in foreign policy. And you have to acknowledge that under Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton was the architect of that foreign policy. Whether it was malevolent or not, I don't know.

There was a huge lack of freedom in communist regimes, but at least they had humanity at the center of their thinking.

During the 1990s the United States sought to impose the 'Washington Consensus' on Latin American governments. It embodied what Latin Americans call 'neo-liberal' principles: budget cuts, privatization, deregulation of business, and incentives for foreign companies. This campaign sparked bitter resistance and ultimately collapsed.

Most people who aspire to be president don't have a foreign policy and national security background. The exception was certainly Hillary Clinton.