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in the country right now. and i think because -- unless iraq suddenly turns around and becomes a big zugs success, i don't think democracy will flow out of there. >> jim, you know a lot of the arab leaders personally, i know you do. when we found out through this assange thing and the big break, it didn't surprise you or me that the arab leaders would love us to knock off or do something to reduce the threat from iran, from mahmoud ahmadinejad. if we ever collaborated with the israelis would we lose all of their support? >> if israel were to attack iran it would be devastating and a disaster for the region and frankly would make no sense at all. >> they would be protecting themself from a nuclear state that hates them. it would make sense to them in that regard. >> a nuclear state it's not. we have far greater problems with iran in the region. its support for hezbollah and
or live in the old parasitic al kind of governments, you can have your own government and run your own country. i call bush potentially a fool for what he did. is it possible he will turn out to be a genius, that this will turn out to be a democratic government as a model for that region? >> i don't think it will be a democratic government and any kind of model for the region. regions follow success. and they emulate success. so if the idea was bring in democracy and had iraq become some flourishing success, yeah, it could have caught on. but what has -- >> like in syria, they would have said, hey, it works next door. >> especially in countries that aren't doing well. but what has been the alternative? which governments are doing well? they are dubai, which is not a democracy. people would like to emulate dubai much more than they would like to emulate iraq. small country run more like a corporation than any kind of democracy. there's no real voting there. that's the more successful model, the more contagious model
neither getting along and the president in the middle. >> rights agenda, try that, caper, because i'm getting goose eggs here. no social agenda except hoping the unemployment rate drops. where's the rights agenda, a civil rights agenda, human rights agenda on gender, race, ethnicity or whatever? is there anything like that on the horizon this year? >> i don't think so other than something that you actually mentioned, chris, and that actually is protecting what was done in the last congress. we know that the republicans are going to come after health care reform. they're going to try to come after some of these other major issues where the president had some success, so i think actually protecting on those social issues is going to be a part of the aagenda. don't ask, don't tell was a major civil rights accomplishment. we'll see if that means that we go to the next part of the conversation that i think some want to have and that would be gay marriage. i'm not sure that we'll get there in this congress. >> what kind of congress action would that be?