Vol. 7, No. 7    July 1, 2007

• In many ways, people are still fixated on a model of the Middle East that has now become obsolete. For the last quarter of a century we have been in the midst of a conflict with militant Islam, which seeks to assume power and deliver a corrective to the historical decline of Islam and the rise of the West.

• The Iranian regime is basically a messianic apocalyptic cult. There is a pathological stream to militant Islam that has suicidal elements, the cult of blood, the cult of death, and the cultivation of fantasy. An ideology based on fantasy is what makes militant Islam very different from any other ideology – including the cold war communist Russia and China, equipped nuclear weapons.

• Is it possible that Iranian rhetoric is only meant for internal consumption? The answer is NO. Not only do they believe in it, they sacrifice themselves and others for it, happily, and therein lies the great danger.

• The Iranian regime can be stopped. I have been encouraging divestment from Iran by U.S. state pension funds, which are a very large factor in the global investment market. These efforts have been working. And if these pension funds c