You cannot possibly expect even the most illiterate person on Earth to believe that you really want a democracy in Iraq while you are paying Mubarak $3 billion a year to pretend he doesn't hate Israel. And you're providing the military and diplomatic umbrella that protects the fascist government, if you will, of the al Sauds.

We [Americans] continue to be harangued by politicians about how Americans must fight this war because we're being attacked because we have freedoms and liberties and women in the workplace and a whole list of ephemera that have nothing to do with this war at all.

But the Iranians are surrounded by a sea of Sunnis who hate them. And if you look on the map, you can see that they're also surrounded by a bunch of American bases that certainly could hit them at any moment. The idea that the Iranians are a threat to the United States is absurd really. How are they going to hurt the United States of America? Unless we attack them first and then they use terrorism inside America.

It is clear to me that the racism was on the other foot, that really, society in Europe was much more racist - vis-à-vis Arabs at least and black Africans - than American society.

You can forgive your leaders for not knowing the intricacies of Islamic history. You cannot forgive them for not knowing their own. And when you look at American democracy, where did it start? It started, if you need to pick a point, at Runnymede in 1215. We have now been at this process, we and our English-speaking allies, for 800 years.

Well, there are certain pockets of improvement. The one that I think is most important is that state and local law enforcement levels have started to do a lot more educative efforts within their organizations to understand the kind of threat we're facing. They've given up on the federal level.

Israelis are wrong in not looking for a change in the relationship with the United States that would put it more in perspective - that we are the great power, they are the minor power. I don't think there are a great many American parents who will want to sacrifice their soldiers and children so Israel can maintain the West Bank. When that becomes clear, I think Israel's days are numbered as an ally that is never questioned or criticized.