I had the privilege of serving in uniform with British forces in Cold War Europe, Bosnia, Iraq, Afghanistan, and the greater Middle East.

The Afghan people do not take kindly to conquerors.

Even before the missteps that I've had, I was never going to run for office. My family is adamantly opposed to it, and frankly, my politics don't necessarily work for the primaries of either of our parties.

No greater privilege than I had as a soldier and then as a spymaster and to some degree now in the business world.

You have to keep on disrupting. If you let up the pressure, then al-Qaeda senior leadership will come back.

The central problem in Syria is that Sunni Arabs will not be willing partners against the Islamic State unless we commit to protect them and the broader Syrian population against all enemies, not just ISIS.

Like a nuclear disaster, the fallout from the meltdown of Syria threatens to be with us for decades, and the longer it is permitted to continue, the more severe the damage will be.

There aren't always a hell of a lot of absolutely right answers out there.

A certain degree of intellectual humility is a good thing.

The Middle East is not part of the world that plays by Las Vegas rules: What happens in the Middle East is not going to stay in the Middle East.