As a guy who has lived and traveled a lot in the Middle East, I can tell you that the people of the region are ready for American policy to return to rationality.

I don't know about Israel, but I have extended family in Egypt, and in countries like Egypt, people have seen America stirring up hornet's nests instead of examining, tackling, and taking on the root problems and causes of terrorism, which I can assure you, the peoples of the Middle East fall victim to more often than the average American.

Egypt and Israel have not had any major unfriendly flair ups since the signing of the Camp David accords, and though Jordan has the largest Palestinian population outside of the West Bank and Gaza, the peace that Yitzak Rabin and King Hussein forged, has through hell and high water - held.

It may amaze many Americans to know that Jordan, like Egypt, has an embassy in Israel and visa versa.

Diplomacy CAN work. Whatever one might think of of Jimmy Carter, people in Egypt still remmeber Carter's toothy smile, and how he worked with Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat to build a peace that has now held up for over 30 years

Ironically, Carter is still better remembered and regarded than Anwar Sadat in many ways, because though he was regarded as a hero of peace in the U.S., back home in Egypt, Sadat gained a reputation as an autocrat with a heavy hand.

I belive Obama can bring back something of Carter's spirit and gift for fruitful diplomacy. That is to say I believe Obama can foster results, where I believe McCain, like Bush, is incapable of meaningfully making diplomatic avenues actually work.

McCain is widely regarded as a bufoon in most of the region like Bush, and the presumptious prince apparent to the military overlordship of that American experiment gone awry - Iraq.

As for Israel, I think that the Israelis, that is to say, the REAL Israeli people (the non-radical fringe, and Egypt has one of those too) much like the people of Egypt, would rather see Barack Obama steward America away from a host of horribly stupid and stubborn foreign policies, that have reaped more radicalism in the region, than rationalism, and would just like to feel that America can again return to itself after such a long extended holiday in hell.

I envy your political science professor. Jordan (at least the northern part of the country) is one of the most beautiful places in all of the Middle East I've ever visited. Amman (the capital) is on a high, cool elevation. I was in Amman in the summertime, and left Cairo (which felt like a blazing hot day in El Paso, Texas) and came to Amman on a breezy sunny day, that felt like a cool, mild aftternoon in San Francisco. Amman has some nice people in it too, but being half Egyptian, I think Cairenes are the friendliest (and craziest) people in all of the world.

That's a good sentiment that I think most people the world over would agree with.

Do you think that Iran and the U.S. will ever have meaningful face to face diplomatic relations with one another, or do you think the all stick and no carrot approach will produce real results between Tehran and Washington?

Will Tehran and Washington ever just talk? Iran and the U.S. broke off all formal relations 29 years ago!

Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran, would bring big, big, big, repurcutions in the real world, as crudely exhilerating as it might seem to subdue a "rouge state" by rendering it as nothing than rubble.

Mahmoud Ahmad-din-jad is hopefully going to be voted out of his token office by the people of Iran in Iran's next big nation wide election, which I believe is coming up in a few months.

If the Iranian people could bring a moderate minister of Culture such as Mohammed Khatami to be its president, perhaps there are more potentialities up ahead for change for Iran itself, aside from the alternative of more catastrophic confrontation on a massively messy military scale.

I thought they were prehistory?

Why Confuse us tommorow

When you can Confuse us today?

...that Rhode Island is that desert south sea island, where Gilligan, the Skipper, Ginger, Mary Anne, the Millionaire and his wife, and the Professor, all got stranded after a big storm blew them all off course, while they were all on an inocent three hour tour...

How apt is your name

You're like a bag full of dogshit

That some mischievious little kid

Has set to flame...

Just as an alcholic drinks

And the Titanic sinks

So too does something's

Bag of brown

Roundly stink...

We all have something stinks

To thank...

Somebody open a window!

Yet all your posts

Do so reak of it...

Yeah, if you're McCain you just bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb away.

As though anybody really cares.

stinky.

..and full 'o shit.

Joe the plummer is all backed up and full of shit.

You wouldn't happen to have Joe's handy hotline number would ya?

You're even more backed up with shit than Joe the plummer!

..and just flush it down the fuckin' toilet.

I'm fed up Joe

And won't suffer a fool

So get your ass off

To trade school...

But he came across like

Mac

The butter knife...

Ay-rabs live in Chicago too!

Thanks for the Obama endorcement and all, but you sir, former fucking general Colin Powell, are a fucking asshole.

For the special services you have rendered this nation by aiding and abetting in the propogating of the existence of weapons of mass deception in Iraq, I would like only to say - fuck you and the horse you rode in on.

..who?

Exposure to such shocking material could only create in the individual exposed to said materials - perpetual sexual abstinance.