What's obtuse the Bush admin not playing up the themes in Krauthammer's essay. A fine essay and one that should get much wider playing time.

Thomas Friedman had an excellent observation in the NYT. He said that just about all of the Arab regimes have encouraged anti-American and anti-Israeli sentiment by accepting a devil's deal whereby they allow Islamic fervor at the margins as long as it is not directed towards their own governments. Those governments have brutally put down Islamic movements. Now, to allow the Islamic movements to have taken over, maybe before they became so rabid, (in my opinion) would have led to even more repressive regimes with the religious storm troopers running the show. But to have allowed the dissent to be directed at us means they are not our friends.