Russia right now is searching for its soul. It's trying to figure out what it really is.

It's not for nothing that the Iranians are known as rug merchants. They are.

For most of mankind, the average person knew what was happening in his own village and the next one, and nothing beyond that, and he didn't care, so that leaders were able to guide their countries almost irrespective of what people really thought because they weren't involved in it. Now, everybody knows what's happening instantaneously.

But the central point is that any campaign against Iraq, whatever the strategy, cost and risks, is certain to divert us for some indefinite period from our war on terrorism.

Europeans are familiar with terrorism and violence. We have not experienced a true conflict on our soil in a hundred years, and especially not one that involved 3,000 dead.

The Russians are not going to do what we want them to do because we want them to do it.

Because national borders are eroding, because of the growth of non-state actors. It's a different kind of a world. We are tied down by a tiny little country - Iraq. It's amazing, given the disparity in military economic strength. It's a world where most of the big problems spill over national boundaries, and there are new kinds of actors and we're feeling our way as to how to deal with them.