Maybe Iraq will come back and become the dominant power among Arab countries. That seems to me as conceivable.

I wouldn't rule out the possibility of Muslim or at least Arab countries developing some form of organization comparable to the European Union. I don't think that's very likely, but it conceivably could happen.

I am doubtful that there will be any sort of real coherence of Muslim societies into a single political system run by an elected or non-elected group of leaders.

Two significant developments in the past several decades have been the collapse of communism as an ideology and the general acceptance, in rhetoric, if not practice, of liberal democracy.

Certainly here in the U.S., we've had fundamentalist movements that have taken very critical and hostile attitudes toward immigration and the assimilation of immigrants into our society and culture. So these tendencies are fairly universal. The problem is what if they get out of hand and become the dominant factor in a society, which can only lead to the oppression of minorities or even to war with neighboring societies with differing cultures. That's why it seems to me it's important to try to keep these tendencies toward extremism under control.

Global politics remains extremely complex and countries have different interests, which will also lead them to make what might seem as rather bizarre friends and allies.

I think it's hard to talk about the Muslim world and Christian world as blocks.