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As I sit here in Massachusetts it is in the 50's outside (and partly sunny). Yesterday it was 64 and gorgeous. Yet it's the beginning of January.

Today my father-in-law got a call from Iran. Tehran has 2-3 feet of snow. Temperatures have been below freezing for days. The schools have been closed for a week. The gas lines have no pressure because of the unexpected demand for heating*. The orange groves in the north have been demolished, the trees broken by heavy wet snow.

Welcome to our new planet.

* For those who wonder why Iran would be short on gas, the answer is simple. Lack of refineries. When the middle east was under western colonization, it made more sense to ship crude to Europe and America, where it would then be processed. Processing requires a substantial technological infrastructure. The middle east has that infrastructure now, and refineries are being built, but most of the technology comes from the west, and from American companies in particular. And of course the U.S. won't allow it to be exported to Iran. So Iran sits on huge deposits of oil, but can't actually use that oil themselves.

I am a big fan of Fareed Zakaria. He is one of the few columnists out there who not only recognizes America's responsibility to appear moral to the world (and I mean that as an addition to "being" moral, not as an alternative), but also has the ability to understand and articulate how others view us, regardless of whether those people are friends or foes.

In this particular column, Fareed uncomfortably recognizes that the reason he prefers Barack Obama to Hillary Clinton on foreign policy is precisely because he believes Barack has a better "feel" for how non-Americans perceive our country. In other words, it's not about foreign policy "experience", it's about being able to empathize (in the sense of "deep understanding").

I call the recognition "uncomfortable" because of course, Fareed has made a career out of foreign policy (degrees, books, experience…). Yet, here he has to admit that while those gave him the necessary tools, what makes him really good as an advisor to America is his non-American upbringing.

Which leads me to something that always seems to be forgotten when we get around to picking our leaders. In the end, the true strength of a leader is not what they know, but how well they choose their advisors. It's a rare person who has the courage to surround themselves with people who are smarter than they are, and an even rarer one who can do so without being manipulated. Where would Kennedy have been without his brother as Attorney General? And since then, only Carter and (perhaps) George Bush Sr. have had those skills.

A leader may provide the ideology, but the advisors provide the tools and information. A smart leader knows that, and isn't afraid to pick advisors who differ in ideology but have greater skills.

But whomever becomes President next year, they could do far worse than choosing Fareed Zakaria as an advisor.

I don't want to get in the habit of posting U.S. election information here, but the areas of religious tolerance and immigration are relevant. So…

From last night's Republican debate (via the International Herald Tribune).

Romney turned on Huckabee for a proposal he made as governor of Arkansas to give breaks in college tuition to the children of illegal immigrants. "Mike, that's not your money," he said. "That's the taxpayers' money. And the right thing here is to say to people that are here legally as citizens or legal aliens, we're going to help you. But if you're here illegally, you ought to be able to return home or get in line with everybody else, but illegals are not going to get taxpayer-funded breaks that are better than our own citizens." Huckabee responded: "In all due respect, we're a better country than to punish children for what their parents did. We're a better country than that."

There's an old joke that's become more popular in recent years. "In America they say anyone can become president. Now I know it's true." With it has come the follow-on. "I used to think it didn't matter who was president, now I know I was wrong." For a long time I've believed that if you have to pick someone (for anything) who's beliefs you don't agree with, at least pick someone smart. With someone smart you can at least hope that when the chips are down and reality is staring them in the face, they'll make a reasonable decision. The senior President Bush was a case in point. I didn't vote for him, I didn't like him, and I didn't like what he did. But he understood reality enough to know he shouldn't invade Iraq.

Trying to eliminate Saddam .. would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. Apprehending him was probably impossible ... We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq ...there was no viable "exit strategy" we could see, violating another of our principles. Furthermore, we had been self-consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the post-Cold War world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations' mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression that we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land." - George Bush, Sr. "A World Transformed"

So, of all the Republicans, I thought that Romney, despite massive political flip-flips, was the least dangerous. But then he spouts off with this zinger.

A Muslim belongs in the Cabinet | csmonitor.com

LAS VEGAS - Mitt Romney tells good jokes. I had the chance to hear a few of them this month at a political fundraiser in Las Vegas, where the Republican presidential contender gave his audience a few good chuckles before going into his domestic and foreign policy agenda.

His platform seemed sound enough analytically – until he demonstrated an aggravating hypocrisy in his reply to my query on one of his key foreign policy positions. It's a stance that should give pause to all Americans who are considering voting for him.

I asked Mr. Romney whether he would consider including qualified Americans of the Islamic faith in his cabinet as advisers on national security matters, given his position that "jihadism" is the principal foreign policy threat facing America today. He answered, "…based on the numbers of American Muslims [as a percentage] in our population, I cannot see that a cabinet position would be justified. But of course, I would imagine that Muslims could serve at lower levels of my administration."

Romney, whose Mormon faith has become the subject of heated debate in Republican caucuses, wants America to be blind to his religious beliefs and judge him on merit instead. Yet he seems to accept excluding Muslims because of their religion, claiming they're too much of a minority for a post in high-level policymaking.

-Mansoor Ijaz

Bizarre. A candidate who thinks he should select his advisors based on a religious quota system?

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Iranian court reopens Kazemi case

Iranian court reopens Kazemi case

Zahra Kazemi died in a hospital in Tehran in July 2003 Iran's Supreme Court has ordered a new investigation into the death of the Iranian-Canadian photojournalist, Zahra Kazemi, while in custody in 2003. Judiciary spokesman Ali Reza Jamshidi said the court had objected to the acquittal in 2004 of an intelligence agent accused of beating her to death. He said judges had "found some formal flaws" in previous investigations. Kazemi, 54, died in Tehran in July 2003 having received head injuries during more than three days of interrogation. She was arrested on 23 June 2003 while taking photographs outside Evin prison in the north of the capital, but was never formally charged with any offence. The case severely strained relations between the Canadian and Iranian governments.

Archbishop thrown into row over US Middle East policy | Guardian Unlimited

Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, found himself plunged into political controversy yesterday after remarks made during the course of a wide-ranging interview for a Muslim magazine were translated into an all-out attack on American policy in the Middle East.

The archbishop told Emel magazine in what it described as "a series of profound views expressed in serene tranquillity" that the US had lost the moral high ground since the terrorist attacks of September 11 2001, and that Washington's attempts to accumulate influence and control in the region were not working.

He was quoted as saying: "It is one thing to take over a territory and then pour energy and resources into administering it and normalising it. Rightly or wrongly, that's what the British empire did - in India, for example. It is another thing to go in on the assumption that a quick burst of violent action will somehow clear the decks and that you can move on and other people will put things back together - Iraq, for example."

"Interpreted as"? I'm not sure I would call it an attack, but "very strong critique" would work. He's right. We lost the moral high ground a long time ago. Ironically, General Petraeus was one of the few on the scene who understood this, but his appointment to handle the Iraq fiasco happened far too late for him to do anything about it.

Petraeus oversaw a program of public works and political reinvigoration in Mosul,^[27][28] launching 4,500 reconstruction projects.^[29] The New York Times has stated that "from the first day they arrived in Mosul, Bravo Company and the rest of the 101st Airborne Division were saddled with dozens of other missions, all of them distinctly nonmilitary, and most of them made necessary by the failure of civilian leaders in Washington and Baghdad to prepare for the occupation of Iraq."^[30] Some Iraqis gave Petraeus the nickname 'King David',^[31][32] which was later adopted by some of his colleagues.^[33][34][35] Newsweek has stated that "It's widely accepted that no force worked harder to win Iraqi hearts and minds than the 101st Air Assault Division led by Petraeus."^[36]

Wikipedia

You arrest someone. You charge them with a crime, you put them in jail. Now here's a basic question. Do you believe your justice system is in fact "just"? If so, then clearly you feel that the punishment you have given these people is appropriate for their crimes. The time in jail will either serve as a deterrent (we'll ignore all the studies about how well that works) or rehabilitation.

VOA News - Palestinian Prisoner Release Given Green Light

Israel's prime minister has received cabinet approval to release 441 Palestinian prisoners ahead of next week's Mideast peace conference in Annapolis, Maryland. Mr. Olmert told his cabinet he plans to remove unauthorized settlements in the West Bank. As VOA's Jim Teeple reports from Jerusalem, Palestinians have criticized the prisoner release as inadequate. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert Momentum is gathering ahead of next week's Mideast peace conference in Annapolis, Maryland. Ehud Olmert says his prisoner release is a key confidence building measure, ahead of the conference.

All of which is to say that if you can go to your jails, sort through the people there, and come up with 441 of them whom you believe it's suddenly okay to release in order to "build confidence", then it's clear that it isn't the people in jail you are punishing. You're trying to punish the people of Palestine. Because the only way I can interpret that phrase is that it's meant to indicate that "if you play nice with us, we'll let more go, and we won't arrest any new folks". All of which makes a mockery of the justice system.

I know, I say I'm blogging about Iran, and then the next thing I post is about Iraq. But the fact is, the future of Iraq is critical to the future of Iran. That's true from a political standpoint (Iran needs a stable neighbor in Kurdish Iraq if nowhere else) and an economic one. A successful and growing Iraq would be a great trading partner for Iran, which is one of the largest producer of consumer goods in the Middle East. A wealthy middle class in both countries would do a lot for the stability of the region. Nothing limits extremism as much as people who have something to lose. Unfortunately, we've pretty much ensured that that won't happen.

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Sunni group attacks al-Qaeda base

A Sunni faction has killed 18 al-Qaeda militants in an attack on a compound near the Iraqi city of Samarra, police have said.

Another 16 al-Qaeda members were said to have been captured in the attack.

…

The faction is one of several Sunni former insurgent groups that have now turned against al-Qaeda.

On Friday, five Sunni Arab tribal leaders had been killed in a suicide attack in Diyala province, north-east of Baghdad.

Safe havens

The BBC's Jim Muir in Baghdad says the Islamic Army of Iraq is apparently planning to use those captured in an exchange of prisoners.

Samarra has been the scene of factional violence

…

Analysts say that while the Islamic Army shares with the US military a common enemy in al-Qaeda, it does not support the coalition forces or their continued presence in Iraq.

No US or Iraqi security forces are thought to have been involved in the fighting.

Our correspondent says many of the Sunni tribes that used to provide safe havens for the militants are actively combating al-Qaeda.

The enemy of our enemy is not necessarily our friend. That's true of the Iraqi Sunni's and al-Qaeda, but also of course of the Iraqi Sunni's and ourselves. Now if we could just wrap our head around that concept in a more global context.