We need to have strong allies. Our association and connection with our allies is essential to America's strength. We're the great nation that has allies, 42 allies and friends around the world.
It is essential for Israel's safety and ours that we do everything we can to support our staunchest ally at all times.
I met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel, visited our allies in the Arab Gulf, traveled to Tunisia and Iraq, met with President Petro Poroshenko in Ukraine, and visited our allies in Germany, France, and the United Kingdom.
On foreign policy, President Obama has kept our nation safe from terrorism and restored our standing in the world. When it comes to one of our closest allies - Israel - President Obama has been resolute.
Our allies, Great Britain, Australia, Israel, some of the strongest militaries in the world, allow transgender people to serve openly and have experienced no ill effects from that.
The president who is most slandered as Hitler will probably prove to be the most zealous advocate of democratic government abroad, the staunchest friend of beleaguered Israel, and the greatest promoter of global individual freedom in our recent memory.
American liberals are an external part of Israel's conscience, and when it disdains them, it becomes a harder and more isolated place. The support that Israel has gained from millenarian American conservatives is no substitute, in part because such allies aren't persuasive global advocates for Israel.
Freedom is one of the deepest and noblest aspirations of the human spirit. People, worldwide, hunger for the right of self-determination, for those inalienable rights that make for human dignity and progress. America must remain freedom's staunchest friend, for freedom is our best ally and it is the world's only hope to conquer poverty and preserve peace. Every blow we inflict against poverty will be a blow against its dark allies of oppression and war. Every victory for human freedom will be a victory for world peace.
In an increasingly volatile and uncertain world, the men and women of the Iowa National Guard play a vital role in overseas contingency operations, domestic response missions and aggressive training exercises to remain a ready and reliable force.
Homeland security is inherently transnational today. There's hardly anything adverse that happens in our homeland that doesn't have a cause or effect that's generated abroad. Increasingly, we must rely on our allies and foreign governments to share information and data to secure our country.
America has to stand by our allies. I think the tension that existed between Israel and the United States was very unfortunate.
One of the casualties of Israel becoming an increasingly partisan issue has been American Jews themselves, who vote overwhelmingly Democratic and who see Israel's rightward turn as betraying fundamental liberal values.
The United States must not allow North Korea to exacerbate tensions between our key strategic allies in Asia. As the leader of the free world, the United States needs to support our regional allies who are standing up to a Stalinist regime that is intent on developing nuclear weapons.
America must remain freedom's staunchest friend, for freedom is our best ally and it is the world's only hope to conquer poverty and preserve peace.
The Bush Administration's failure to be consistently involved in helping Israel achieve peace with the Palestinians has been both wrong for our friendship with Israel, as well as badly damaging to our standing in the Arab world.
Our struggle is not easy. Those who oppose our cause are rich and powerful and they have many allies in high places. We are poor. Our allies are few. But we have something the rich do not own. We have our bodies and spirits and the justice of our cause as our weapons.