How does that square with the states, like Iran, that provide material support for terrorist groups? We'll extend an olive branch to Iran but crush Hamas or Hezbollah if need be (or allow Israel to do it)? Does that make sense to anyone? What about states that don't necessarily provide active support to groups, but look the other way when they cross over their borders, run financing through their country, etc.

Umm...

Anyone? Is it possible to admit that Bush might have been right that you cannot treat them as two different things? He got flack for going after terrorism as a state issue and ignoring the stateless networks. Now, he did no such thing, but actually recognized that where there is a terrorist group, there likely is a state that is not doing everything it can to stop that group.

Give Bush credit for something? Nahhhh.

How can President Obama claim that it's a "false choice" to choose between "our safety and our ideals" and, along the way, promise that he won't abandon those principles for security and yet also look to realism as his foreign policy lodestar?

No more of this, for him, nonsensical neocon democracy promotion. Cool-headed but cold-hearted realpolitik runs the show ("..we will extend a hand if you unclench your fist").

But what about those ideals that we can't abandon?

To put it otherwise, if we're to negotiate with Iran unconditionally, isn't that placing our values of democracy and human rights second to our national interest and security?

Exactly where does President Obama place human rights and the freedom of others on his foreign policy list of concerns? If they're not at the top, it seems to me that he's placing these ideals behind our security. Something he said he's against.

To be blunt, I may be in agreement with this realist approach in affairs. But if we embrace it, let's admit what we're doing: placing our security and stability above democracy and human rights. Something the President said we couldn't do.

Anyway, we'll see.

"Silencing of dissent"?? Isn't that one of the top goals of the Obama administration?

Irony escapes these people.

The above quotes were my favorite takeaways from President Obama's address. Not so different from former President Bush's intent, just more nuanced, based on what worked and what didn't work over the past 8 years. Bush foreign policy was right for its time and surely worth a shot to cast the widest possible net (terrorist factions and their state enablers). So what that didn't work out exactly as planned. It is our collective way to do more of what worked and to modify or change what didn't. The operative words here are that citizens of the world will judge their leaders over what they can BUILD, not what they can tear down or destroy. So shall it be, even in our own country.

As we move forward expect to hear a lot more on this theme, and variations thereof. It is, at least initially, a nice way to keep belly aching, and loud belches from becoming disruptive.

President Obama is HAPPY to unleash a cage full of monkeys on ANYONE'S back.

I like it!