If Iraq were to descend into chaos, the Europeans would feel the effects just as much as we would.

Who is the guarantor, if there is one, of a more stable world? It's the United States.

The Iraqi elections were an important first step.

Since the days of Peter the Great, Russians have been maybe Europeans who didn't share in the enlightenment and the reformation, or are they Mongol Asians with the European veneer. And they've gone back and forth.

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

Much of what we know about mathematics and trade comes from the Arabs. Then came stagnation, and now they're the West's whipping boy. This is a problem that cannot be solved overnight, and certainly not militarily.

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