I think a long term disengagement is the right way to go, but we're not talking about Canadian Socialists who will live and let live. A Cindy Sheehan departure is not an option. The Taliban will control the world's opium production and Iraq will make Somalia look like Santa Barbara. Not an option.

On the other hand, we can never kill all the extremists, and as I think we will witness in Lebanon, if you make more enemies than you kill, a military pogrom will bankrupt us eventually and set us back another 4000 years.

It's a long term fix, but the 8 year old kids getting an education in Iraq and Afghanistan today will be moderates we will be working with 20 and 30 years from now. And whatever we can do eliminate the economic and cultural ghetto some many Palestinians are living today will go a long way to creating moderate citizens who, while possibly being anti-semitic, will be too successful and secure in their own homeland to strap on explosives and sneak into Haifa.

I do agree that a new US administration may hold some new options, but it won't be time to break out the Joan Baez records. Keep in mind that the current President had a huge pile of crap dumped on his desk on 9/11. I don't know what I would've done differently.

Carrots will be in order, but we will still need a stick of epic proportions.

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