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And on foreign policy, obviously the headlines of late have been about Iran.  And let me say that when I came into office there was a lot of bluster about Iran, but what was needed was a plan -- because the fact of the matter is that Iran was moving rapidly in building its nuclear capacity.  And so, with the help of members of Congress, including the members who are here today, we constructed the toughest set of sanctions ever.  And we organized laboriously over the course of two years around the world cooperation not just from allies, but also in some cases from folks who were very reluctant to apply sanctions -- Russia and China.  And we mobilized international unity around saying Iran had to meet its international responsibilities.

And as a consequence of the strength of those sanctions and the painstaking diplomacy that we engaged in, Iran ultimately came to the table and said, we are prepared in a serious way to negotiate around our nuclear program -- for the first time in over a decade.

And as a consequence of the agreement that John Kerry, who is doing a great job as Secretary of State, was able to construct, we've seen the first halt in the Iranian nuclear program in a decade, the reduction to zero of the 20 percent enriched uranium that was the biggest threat to immediate breakout capacity, unprecedented inspections -- in some cases, daily inspections -- into what they're doing throughout the country with their nuclear program, and the prospect that we may be able through peaceful, diplomatic means remove this cloud that has hovered over the Middle East and had the potential and continues to have the potential of triggering a nuclear arms race in the most volatile region of the world.

Now, that's the right thing to do.  That's good for the United States.  It's good for our allies.  It's good for Israel. Because I've said, and I will repeat, that I don't take any options off the table as Commander-in-Chief when it comes to the security of the United States or our allies.  And I've also said we cannot accept Iran having a nuclear weapon.  But I spend too much time at Walter Reed, looking at kids, 22, 23, 24, 25 years old, who've paid the kind of price that very few of us in this room can imagine on behalf of our freedom not to say I'm going to do every single thing that I can to try to resolve these issues without resorting to military conflict. 

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