Thats your gripe with him? As long as he does what he promises i.e. less money to the Yeshivas more to the middle class I'm with him. Anyway, the election has been postponed now, so the point is moot for now.

I agree totally with Judith. No chance Netanyahu is going to strike Iran alone. And since he can't count on Obama for assistance, lets just hope sanctions and covert activities work until 2016.

Yair Lapid for PM

Don't think for a second that I'm not acting purely in my own self interest. I'm not there on a good will mission.

I'm really just talking on that basic connection that comes from two people faced with an opportunity and I'm just using an Israeli doing business with an Iranian as an example of how two people that are basically indoctrinated to hate and fear each other in fact have much in contact on a purely human level. I would never do any deal that compromised my patriotism. 

Awesome Dennis, great to see you here. Now if we can get you to convince your friend Adam Carolla to contribute...... 

I suppose I'll still favor democracy--worst form of government except all the others that have been tried and all that--but I must say I'm growing increasingly depressed about it.

Absolutely. Democracy ain't perfect, but it sure beats the hell out of the alternatives.

I would love to see what would develop from a completely Libertarian society though. My suspicion is that it would work, as long as the vast majority were in favor of giving it a try.

Of course he has to - so they can keep the reality show going. If Newt goes, it could end the race prematurely and there are advertising dollars to be lost on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News etc...

Great stuff Judith

The conundrum is perhaps that exporting "McDonald's" has the effect of both enlightening some and further hardening others.

It would be nice to be able to rely on Google and Wikipedia for enlightenment, but if you're looking for ways to further honor Allah or Jesus or Satan or Yahweh or whatever, Google and Wikipedia are great for that too.

I'm for anything that gets the world of Jihadi oil. I don't really care how much that costs. Think of it as investing in defense.

Off topic - I'm impressed Argentina has a Jewish Foreign Minister. Wasn't long ago the place was absolutely rife with anti-Semitism

I hate to point this out, but Darfur happened on Bush's watch, and that was FAR worse a tragedy, and IMHO fully qualified as genocide. So Obama may be a fool, but on this point he is certainly not alone.

Claire, I'm as concerned as you about the possible repurcussions of intervention in Syria, but here's the thing:

What happens if Assad Jr., spurred by the impotence of the West and the Arab League to take any meaningful action against his relatively low body count (relative being the operative word) decides to emulate his father and proceeds to massacre a good 10,000 of his own countrymen in one swoop against Homs or Hama or wherever? Can we live with ourselves knowing that perhaps we could have taken more action to bolster the opposition, or perhaps to even intervene directly  by committing boots to the ground, creating a no-fly zone, etc.? Wouldn't that perhaps have a better influence on creating a more pro-Western feeling amongst anti-Assad parties?

It seems like we may be damned if we do, and equally damned if we don't...

Totally reminds me of the quote from the end of "Charlie Wilson's War" - "These things happened. They were glorious and they changed the world.... and then we f#$%ed up the end-game".

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

I'm not insulted, and apology accepted. But to think that Iran is the only bad guy in the region is extremely naive. Its not like its "Shia bad, Sunni good". Remember that Al Qaeda is Sunni. So are the Salafists and the Moslem Brotherhood, all of them detest non-Muslims - Jews, Israelis and Americans highest on their list - just as much as the Iranians. Its replacing one brand of Islamofascism with another.