And so our goal with this Nuclear Security Summit has always been to be very specific, concrete, around a set of issues that if we act with some deliberateness, can actually enhance everybody's security and should not be controversial.
It was history's odd timing: A great historical rupture in the Arab world, bearing within it the promise of remaking a flawed political tradition that knew no middle ground between despotism and nihilistic violence, happened on the watch of an American president proud of his deliberateness and his detachment from history's passions.