On the White House’s touting a commitment from China at the nuclear summit to move forward with sanctions on Iran:
It means absolutely nothing.
That means that the Chinese aren’t going to veto. It doesn’t say what‘s going to be in the resolution. It doesn’t indicate there will be anything serious about it. The Chinese could even abstain. It gets us nowhere — where we were a month or two ago, where the Chinese have said we’ll consider talking about the beginning of a framework of perhaps a way to approach sanctions. Meaningless.
On the stability of the Polish political system after the epic tragedy it has experienced:
The irony is this is the most successful of all the east European countries. It was the first to lead the Warsaw Pact countries — captive nations — out of the Soviet empire — with Solidarity. It led the way. It’s also been the most successful in changing the economy to [a] capitalist economy and establishing a stable democracy.
The one ray of light here is that … the presidency is largely a ceremonial position. So, the head of the government was not on the plane and the government is generally intact. … This is a terrible loss of the political elite of the country. But I don’t think it threatens their stability.