Looking back at the Democratic National Convention, Joel Stein jokes about the DNC after parties, celebrity sightings of Jessica Alba and Kim Kardashian, southern hospitality in Charlotte, N.C., and the tight security at the convention that kept the TIME humor columnist from seeing former President Clinton’s speech.
Dan wrote: It was a sad time for our country. These past 18 years have seen some prttey poor foreign policy policies towards the Middle East.We've seen a variety of approaches to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict everywhere on a span from a full-court press interaction to basically ignoring what is going on in that arena. It doesn't really seem that being interactive or not made much difference, one way or the other. The Carter peace agreement was a true achievement, because Egypt is absolutely key to maintaining the cold peace that exists between Israel and other Arab countries. Without Egypt's participation, other countries are not willing to take on Israel in conventional warfare.Honestly, I think the Middle East system of almost across-the-board authoritarian/totalitarian republics and monarchies is the biggest problem we face over there. As long as those governments continue to run as they do, we really aren't going to get very far.I know I'm wildly crazy to say so but overthrowing Saddam in Iraq wasn't enough. My main regret with the war in Iraq is not torture, body counts, expended billions, etc., but rather that the neighboring Syrian Ba'athist regime remains.