I attended the NR cruise to Alaska in August. After one of the seminars, I talked privately with John Bolton. He said that prior to then we had not tried politically negotiating with the tribal leaders. Last March I spent my own money to go to five Middle East Muslim countries. I got friendly with and got into the hearts' and minds' motivation of the Muslim religion. I came up with three findings and recommendations. My letters to the President, the US Senators, around 160 Representatives, and all state Governors must have been read, because they have acted on nine of the solutions I suggested. You can verifiably read these prior solutions and responses on my website. My solutions also went to Secretaries Gates, Rice, and Chertoff. As you can see on my website, they are going with all three solutions provided. My letter was written on April 22, 2007, with follow up information on July 2.

I observed:

1. The Administration started dealing politically with the tribal chiefs (family heads) of Iraq. I learned that all the power and allegiance in an Arab country is in the hands of the tribal chiefs. In my letter of April 22, 2007, I wrote, "Universally not causing dishonor to the family is paramount, even if it means hiding a criminal. Family loyalties are all important above all other loyalties, including loyalty to the state. In Jordan, our bus was pulled over for speeding. Our Muslim guide saw the policemans name on his lapel. He knew where that family grouping lives in Jordan. Families tend to stick together. Our guide told the surprised officer where he lived. He told him, "We are neighbors. I know your cousins. For fear of dishonor from his cousins, he did not write a ticket. I attended a National Review cruise to Alaska at the end of July 2007. John Bolton, who was there, told me after one of the seminars that you had previously not been politically dealing with the tribal chiefs prior to my writing my letter of April 22. He promised to follow the results of my disclosure to you with interest. Secretary Gates announced on May 18 (in the news) that you were going to start politically dealing with the tribal chiefs. This was my intent in my letter of April 22, as I reiterated in my enclosed letter of July 2, 2007. My style is often to state findings and arguments clearly, expecting the receiver to come to the proper, expected conclusion. As a result of politically dealing with the tribal chiefs, they have become friends and put down their arms against us. They have joined us against the terrorists. What a wonderful difference this has made. This has saved American and Iraqi lives. The news reports that from May until now, American casualties have gone down 75 percent and Iraqi civilian casualties have gone down 70 percent. The location of IEDs have been disclosed so their incidences of being detonated have been reduced by 50 percent.

2. On May 13, 2007, Vice President Cheney was sent to the United Arab Emirates to talk them out of selling banned goods to Iran. This was following my April 22 letter report that "Salalah, Oman and Dubai are hugely into the "Re-Export business. They explained that they buy goods and greatly mark them up for resale to neighboring countries. Presumably this means banned goods to Iran. Please visit these ports as I did to realize that this is true.

3. Toward the end of May 2007 and then again more recently, Secretary Gates announced that we will be dealing with the hearts and minds of the terrorists to fight them. That, too, was my solution. With 3 billion Muslims and with 10 percent of them being fanatic terrorists (300 million), that would be the only effective way of fighting them, because they would otherwise keep propagating more suicide bombers. My solutions are, Bury the recoverable remains of each Muslim suicide bomber in a secure area with the blood of seventy-two virgin pigs or apes poured on the body. Dont give the remains back to the relatives for honoring and burial. Declare that these terrorists were not true Muslims and get good imams to affirm this if possible. Telling someone that he comes from apes or pigs is the greatest Muslim insult. It is also used to dehumanize non-believers making Muslims more willing to blow them up. When President Bush came to Indonesia, protesters were dressed in monkey suits with Bush face masks.

Through DNA testing, I read that humans interbred with chimpanzees 6,000+ years ago. We should DNA test each terrorist's remains to find that the terrorist comes from chimpanzees. This means that his whole family comes from apes. This will truly dishonor the family. The risk of DNA testing and dishonor of the family will be a great deterrent, especially if a respected Muslim is involved in the testing. The burying with pig blood will stop the immediate terrorist bombers. The DNA test results will dissuade parents from raising future terrorist suicide bombers.

Since my writing these solutions, I learned that Indonesian Muslims stopped terrorist bombings, such as in their Bali night clubs, by burying the terrorist remains with a pig. I got this information second hand from my doctors nurse whose sister is also a nurse in Indonesia. If you are able to independently verify this, then Muslims are willing to use an approach similar to mine against alleged Muslim suicide bombers. We should lose our timidity and openly go ahead with this solution.

I stood up at the seminar where Mr. Morris et al. made the Democrats winning in 2008 a foregone conclusion. I disagreed and announced that the Administration was starting to deal politically with the tribal chiefs with whom, as I had written them, was where all the power lay. You can verify this if it is on tape. From February 2007 until May 2007, the surge was a disaster with increased loss of American lives. Once we started politically dealing with the tribal chiefs per my suggestion, the chiefs realized that we were not trying to usurp their power and divert their tribe's loyalties to a central government. Then they joined with us instead of shooting at us. They turned in the terrorists and told us about locations of IEDs. It was not a matter of the tribal chiefs coming to us. It was a matter of our coming to them with reassurances.

Very truly yours,

Franklin Lacy

Tampa, FL

Those perfidious Persians! Do they take our President and his advisers for fools? How do they presume not to have an ongoing nuclear weapons program? As Mr. Bush has pointed out, Iranian scientists, like most of us who vaguely remember some of our undergraduate physics and chemistry, may retain and disseminate parcels of dangerous knowledge--which must be expunged one way or another. If knowledge does not constitute a casus belli, what on earth does?

And who can say what further challenges these rogues may offer us peace-loving nations? Imagine: no nukes today. Tomorrow they may disband their military forces, even their domestic police, all in order to bring America to her knees! Alas, our national leader may lack the stirring eloquence to keep us aroused to the threats we face. We need some modern American Cicero (Podhoretz, Lieberman, Bolton, Rudy, Hillary?) to step forward and demand: How far, Ahmadinejad, will you continue to abuse our patience?

The price of world hegemony is eternal truculence.

Jordan McClung

Raleigh , NC

"Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who took office as Iran's president in August of 2005, two years after Iran's nuclear weapons program ended, has now been vindicated in his claims that Iran has abandoned the weaponization program." Problem with this statement is, Ahmadinejad never admitted to the existence of any nuclear weapons program whatsoever, until now, which tends to vindicate pretty much everyone who had claimed in the past that the Iranians had a program to build a nuclear weapon, as well as anyone who assumes that they retain the ability to start the program back up any time.

Of course, I'm sure that Ahmadinejad's word that Iran has only peaceful nuclear intentions is good enough for the readers of The Nation... And, yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus...

Dave Barlett

Miami, FL

I have identified certain persons and things in the following paragraph taken from this piece via [brackets,] as a point of clarification for at least one person who was good enough to take the time to join in this letter forum.

If, instead of remarkable reading skills at work this was intentional sarcasm; better luck next time, and please let there be one!

"The whole episode [release of new info discrediting Bush's pretext for belligerence] shows that our democratic system retains at least some essential checks and balances, but it also is depressing to see that, in this instance at least, the fanatical leader [Mahmoud Ahmadinejad] of a theocracy [Iran] seems to have a higher regard for truth than does the president [Bush] of the world's greatest experiment [USA] in representative democracy."

Allyn Marsh

Pittsburgh, PA

I'm not sure I should be happy that this column is an opportunity to effectively paraphrase myself (I recently opined on the Tom Hayden piece, "How the Peace Movement Can Win in 08") but I must as the same issue is presented. I say if you want to discuss unending threats of military action toward Iran and certain American politicians' tolerance of those threats, you need to talk about their motivation. It is a fact that Iran does not militarily threaten the US--instead, Iran (in theory) threatens Israel.

So I find it ridiculous that a search using cntrl/f for "Israel" returns nothing in this article. How could this be? The Israel lobby is the elephant in the living room of neocon foreign policy, especially when considering attacking Iran. The current Israeli government minces no words when gushing praises for Bush's foreign policy. They love our war in Iraq, and no number of US troops in the Mideast is too large for the Israels. The reason we threaten Iraq is the Israel Lobby wants us to. Period.

No mention of Israel means this piece has no credibility, same as the recent Tom Hayden article.

Chris Kent

Portsmouth, NH

It is very difficult for a senator from New York to let Iran off the hook on the nuclear weapons issue. Historically, it has been thought that that blind support for Israel was a requirement for being elected and being re-elected to the Senate in New York. Indeed, take a look at think tanks in Israel, such as at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar Ilan University, Israel, and you will find many American officials or former officials listed on their board of directors.

There is a lot of interest in Israel in a joint attack by the US and Israel on Iran's nuclear facilities. I should imagine that, reflecting that interest, the Israeli lobby is pressuring both sides of the aisle to support this nonsense. While Israel would probably suffer collateral damage from such an attack, they are, for lack of a better word, hysterical on this issue. Rosner, the Washington correspondent for the Israeli paper Ha'aretz, is expressing disappointment that the Intelligence Report will kill the idea in the US. I believe we need to pull out of the Middle East because we are not capable of pursuing an American foreign policy that is good for US, the Middle East or Israel.

Pervis J. Casey

Riverside, CA

The best way to sum up Bush is this: "Don't confuse me with facts, I've already made up my mind." We are all suffering because the man can not understand new information when it becomes available. He simply does as he is told. I, for one, am counting the days till he is leaves office. Pity it can't be today.

Ed Martin

Richmond, British Columbia, Canada

I do not see any contradiction between the statement "the NIE doesn't do anything to change my opinion about the danger Iran poses to the world--quite the contrary" and the findings in the report indicating that Iran does not have an active nuclear weapons program. Continuous long-range missile testing and the public threats of Ahmadinejad claiming his right to wipe the State of Israel out of the map are sufficient facts to justify Bush's opinion. Whether that can lead in the direction of military action is what can be questioned.

I find interesting how respectful your language is towards Ahmadinejad emphasizing his condition of an elected leader while you call George W. Bush the head of a theocracy. Dissenting journalists against their government like yourself are jailed or hung by Ahmadinejad’s system, while you have the opportunity to freely speak in such "theocracy," and not even George W. Bush will dare to question your right to do so.

Jorge Mallea-Blanco

Jacksonville, FL