…in the Middle East:

We can envision, then, a sectarian war raging across the whole of the Fertile Crescent, drawing in all the former territories of Turkish Arabia. The prospect will be a frightening one for the region’s major powers. Both Turkey and Saudi Arabia could one day find chaos rather than functioning states on their permeable borders. If Al Qaeda/Nusrah can establish a base in Jordan, Saudi Arabia will find itself threatened by Al Qaeda franchises on both north and south that will be well-positioned to resume the pursuit of Al Qaeda’s core goal of toppling the Saudi monarchy and “liberating” the holy cities of Mecca and Medina.

The Saudis showed great resiliency in defeating a serious Al Qaeda insurrection in 2004-2008, but that was a strictly internal threat that lacked a real foreign base. Simultaneous Al Qaeda bases in Jordan and Yemen would pose a more serious, if not an existential, threat to Saudi rule. If watching the fall or near-fall of half a dozen regimes in the Arab Spring has taught us anything, it should be that the Arab states that appeared serenely stable to outsiders for the past half century were more brittle than we have understood. The implosion of Turkish Arabia would test those regimes to the limit, and we cannot assume that the rulers of Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait would be any better equipped to defeat the potential challenge than Muammar Qaddhafi and Bashar al-Assad were.

The rulers of Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Iran are surely not blind to this nightmare scenario. As the situation in Turkish Arabia continues to unravel, those regional powers will be compelled to become ever deeper involved in an attempt to keep the tide of war from breaking on their own lands. This conflict could very well touch us all, perhaps becoming an engine of jihad that spews forth attackers bent on bombing western embassies and cities or disrupting Persian Gulf oil markets long before the fire burns out.

Arabia has always had bloody borders. At some point, it will become logically impossible for even the most virulent anti-semite to blame this on Israel. Not that it will stop them, of course.

Ed Driscoll has a roundup of commentary on all the president’s nominees.

From Allahpundit:

Ted Cruz is destroying him over America supposedly being the “world’s bully.” This isn’t a confirmation hearing, it’s target practice.

The beauty of this clip isn’t just the spectacle of Graham making Hagel eat his own shinola. It’s the fact that 90 percent of the reason the left has gone along with this nomination is to see Hagel push back on questions exactly like this one. He was the guy who was going to speak truth to power by standing up to the neocon warmongers and their “Zionist” puppet-masters — and here he is, rolling over. You could almost hear liberals screaming at their TV sets when Graham asked him to name a dumb move taken by the U.S. at the behest of the Israel lobby, “Say ‘Iraq’, Chuck! Say ‘Iraq!’” But Hagel can’t make that move. The Democrats will happily confirm a lightweight who’s unprepared for this hearing and unqualified to lead the Pentagon because he’s useful as a Republican fig leaf for Obama’s upcoming defense cuts. They won’t confirm a guy whose unapologetic conspiratorial mumbling about Israel’s hidden hand or whatever might alienate Jewish voters, and Hagel knows it. So he’s lying here, and not just about this either, purely in the interest of getting confirmed.

A bad day for Chuck Hagel (and Barack Obama) is a good day for the Republic. And Cruz is certainly a rapidly rising star.

Roger Simon is far too kind to him:

You would think with the “Arab Spring” turning into an unremitting display of psychotic religious fascism and fanaticism, chemical weapons ping-ponging between Syria and Hezbollah, Egypt imploding, Iran on the brink, etc., Schumer would take his role more seriously. Evidently not. His ambition has trumped all. He, with Obama’s other “good Jews” (Lew, Emanuel, Axelrod, etc.), plays along to get along, in almost any situation.

But are they, as some suggested in the comments to my January 22 column, the equivalent of the “kapos” and “sonderkommandos” of World War II, Jews who worked for the Nazis? Of course not. Not even close. But they are extremely weak men whose ambition makes them blind to what is in plain sight and not willing to risk anything to jeopardize their position, the very essence of corruption.

Chuck Schumer’s ringing endorsement of Chuck Hagel now seems like one mammoth embarrassment. If Schumer were a man of substance or even relative decency, he would now apologize or at least distance himself in some way. This is not even a matter of political ideology at this point. It is an matter of basic honesty. Hagel is quite simply not qualified for one of the most crucial positions in our country on any level. Will Schumer admit it? If not — liberal, conservative or Zen Buddhist — he is a contemptible hack.

When has he not been a contemptible hack?

[Update a few minutes later]

Poor Chuck Schumer:

Schumer’s travails are hardly over. Soon Republicans will be going populist, going after the big banks (some of his favorite donors) and decrying all those retirement benefits for rich people (“Hey, they’re my rich people!” Schumer would say.). By the end of this he’ll look like a phony Zionist, a faux immigration reformer and a pal of the rich and powerful.

Sure, Schumer is an infamous demagogue. There is no senator more partisan. And yes, the most dangerous place in D.C. is still between Schumer and a microphone. But have some heart, Republicans. The guy has a “kick me” sign on his back and the White House is kicking away.

They deserve each other.

And she’s still lying:

When asked about the claim that the attack was sparked by a protest over a video, she responded, “I did not say . . . that it was about the video for Libya.”

That’s simply untrue. When she stood by the caskets of the four Americans killed in Libya, she directly blamed an “awful Internet video that we had nothing to do with.” Afterward, she reportedly told the father of Tyrone Woods, the former Navy SEAL who was killed in the attack, “We will make sure the person who made that film is arrested and prosecuted.” Why tell the man that if the video had nothing to do with it?

Moreover, Clinton was part of an administration that crafted an entire PR strategy to blame these attacks on “an awful Internet video.” White House press secretary Jay Carney was unequivocal: This was a “response to a video, a film we have judged to be reprehensible and disgusting.” In his address to the United Nations, President Obama mentioned the video six times but al-Qaeda once. When he appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman, he blamed the video directly. U.N. ambassador Susan Rice went on five Sunday shows blaming the video. All of this happened when they already knew it was not true on the day of the attack, and even the president of Libya had publicly called the protest explanation ridiculous.

As I said, this is no surprise to anyone who’s been observing her throughout her career.

Three incredibly outrageous evasions.

Not surprising, to anyone who’s been observing her for the past couple decades. Rose Law Firm billing records? Cattle futures?

[Update a couple minutes later]

Kicking off the campaign.

[Friday morning update]

Thoughts on his disgraceful madness.

He really is one of the more contemptible members of Congress, and the thought of him being president should be frightening.

Was it Fast and Furious on steroids?

It’s a theory that seems to fit the available evidence.

Comparing and contrasting the “sensible” senator versus the “extremist crazy” Michele Bachmann.

[Update a while later]

Chuck Hagel’s historical delusions.

What an awful pick for SecDef. He’s unqualified on every level.