I can only hope that Trump comes to realize the grave dangers of adopting a policy of confrontation toward Iran. Among these dangers is the likelihood that hardliners would again gain the upper hand in the governing process in Tehran, and the moderates who have sought to end national and regional tensions would be marginalized, or worse.

An aggravating feature of this post-9/11 atmosphere is to cast suspicions on Muslims and on Islam as a religion that is interpreted as either inherently violent or death-oriented, with a particular animus against America and Americans.

The atmosphere of fear and security manipulated by the government has converted American citizens into terrorist suspects who are all subject to arbitrary and unreviewable detention and surveillance.

I think if there is to be a crime of 'political genocide' it needs to be formulated with great care and precision to avoid unpopular views from being criminalised.

It should be appreciated that this whole effort to hold leaders of states criminally responsible is a rather radical challenge to territorial sovereignty and a repudiation of the whole related ethos of 'sovereign immunity'.

This kind of totalization of security consciousness [after tragedy of 9/11] has the effect within classrooms (and beyond) of constraining the imagination and reinforcing attitudes that privilege the forces of law and order as against the crosscurrents of freedom and dissent.

Doing something, however pathetic, is psychologically better than doing nothing. In the current political environment - that is, with no more Cold War tensions - the tendency is to counteract the feelings of fear and vulnerability with a variety of military, paramilitary and police measures, despite the reality that this kind of excessive reliance on force in many ways intensifies the very problem it is purporting to solve.