Many Sunnis, who are still stuck in the Saddam era mindset and believe Iraq belongs to them, are trying to prevent a new country from developing at all.

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

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.

Information technology has politicized the world's population.

My point was that removing Saddam should not have been our highest priority. Fighting terrorism should have been our number one concern, followed by the Palestinian peace process.

Osama bin Laden is going after us to get us out of the region, so he can deal with the regimes that he sees in the region, or replace them with purists.

Perhaps the most troubling area in the world goes from the Balkans through the Middle East and in Central Asia.