Truly remarkable leadership is not just about motivating others to follow, it's about inspiring them to become leaders themselves and setting the stage for even greater opportunities for future generations.
Every life is worthy and every life is capable of greatness. We have an obligation to make sure that opportunity for greatness is there.
Our work has only begun. In our time we have an historic opportunity to shape a global balance of power that favors freedom and that will therefore deepen and extend the peace. And I use the word power broadly, because even more important than military and indeed economic power is the power of ideas, the power of compassion, and the power of hope.
I believe that the Iraqis have an opportunity now, without Saddam Hussein there, to build the first multiconfessional Arab democracy in the Middle East. And that will make for a different kind of Middle East. And these things take time. History has a long arc, not a short one. And there are going to be ups and downs, and it is going to take patience by the United States and by Iraq's neighbors to help the Iraqis to do that. But if they succeed, it'll transform the Middle East, and that's worth doing.
The people of the Middle East share the desire for freedom. We have an opportunity - and an obligation - to help them turn this desire into reality.
Richard Clarke had plenty of opportunities to tell us, in the administration, that he thought the war on terrorism was moving in the wrong direction and he chose not to.
