Jake Sullivan

I feel like they're a convenient scapegoat for the United States to continue our imperialistic adventures in that part of the world.

And I want to ask you, because it it really does what strikes me as maybe.

I don't want to say the fatal flaw in American foreign policy, and I want to ask you if you guys have wrestled with this, is the difference between, we talked about capability and ambition, but what about influence and control?

I think America hasn't figured out the difference between to influence events and control it.

And our policies in the Middle East, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, have shown an inability to understand the repercussions

of those actions, whereas China doesn't seem to fall into that trap.

What do you think of that for us?

I basically agree with you.

And when President Biden was elected... I did not see that coming.

Look, when President Biden was elected,

One of the charges he gave all of us was, end America's longest war in Afghanistan, and do not put the United States uniformed military men and women back into war in the Middle East or anywhere else if it can possibly be avoided.

That was his charge.

And we did end the war in Afghanistan, and it was painful, and it was brutal, and it was tragic.

But when we left office, America was not at war for the first time in 25 years.

And one of the reasons that President Biden gave for why he wanted to do that

is because China was extremely happy to see the United States tied down in war in the Middle East while they went around the world with their largesse trying to win influence, as you said.

And I think we do need to turn the page on the forever wars, move forward to compete where competition matters in infrastructure and technology and economic development.

But I would also say that in that post 9-11 period, John, we did a lot of good things too.

Every administration did.

If you look at the question of global health or people coming out of poverty or people gaining literacy all over the world, those indicators are all up, and that is because, in no small part, because of the United States of America.