I don't think the Arab Spring had much to do with energy. I think it was just the opposite, in fact. I think the Arab Spring happened because particularly young people knew they were living in a context where they could not realize their full potential, that they are being kept down by their own governments.

I don't know what the average income of Muslim-Americans is, but Muslim-American immigrants of recent vintage, I bet they have a very above-average representation in professional and business occupations.

The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein once remarked that if you ask a man how much is two plus two and he tells you five, that is a mistake. But if you ask a man how much is two plus two and he tells you ninety-seven, that is no longer a mistake. The man you are talking to is operating with a wholly different logic from your own.

We have to fight the terrorists as if there were no rules and preserve our open society as if there were no terrorists.

It is hard to partner with someone when you become so radioactive no one wants to stand next to you.

Iraq today does have a chance to shape its own future. They may not do that, or this generation may not do that. But maybe the next one will, I don't know. They may try and fail, and stumble, get up and fall back.

I am hoping, though, that many of them have kids, who, when they have a moment to take a break from their iPods, Internet, or Google, will explain to their parents running the country just how the world is being flattened.