They [politicians] have defined the war simply in terms of the detonation of explosives. When you look at the broader picture, America is mired in two wars that we're losing at the moment. We have a political environment that is as poisonous as anything I've seen, at least since the end of Vietnam.

One of the reasons they didn't go to Bosnia, bin Laden has explained extensively, was because they couldn't establish a base anywhere. Not in Catholic Croatia. Not in Orthodox Serbia. So they sent some trainers and a lot of money.

In an odd way, we have really destroyed two of our strongest allies against the Islamists. Saddam Hussein, and we've probably fatally undermined Bashir al Assad in Syria.

We're being attacked, Britain is being attacked, our allies are being attacked because we've installed and backed and implemented a set of policies in the Middle East for the last years or more.

I don't know what our capabilities are. If I were there, I think it would be nutty to do that. The only country on Earth more containable than Iran is Iraq. And we've certainly made a mistake there. We could have continued Saddam.

I've said before: If Osama bin Laden was a Christian, Iraq was the Christmas present he always wanted but never expected his parents to give. It validated for the Muslim world virtually all of bin Laden's rhetoric. He had always said the Americans will destroy any strong Muslim regime, and we did.

A nuclear weapon of some dimension, whether it's actually a nuclear weapon, or a dirty bomb, or some kind of radiological device. Yes, I think it's probably a near thing.