I've never been a big fan of those alternative-history novels in which Hitler wins World War II or Richard Nixon becomes president for life, but recent events have me pondering a hideous prospect: What if John McCain had defeated Barack Obama in 2008? The answer, as indicated by McCain's recent posturing, is that we'd be struggling with a lot more than an economic downturn; we'd probably be in costly and unwinnable wars not just in Afghanistan but in Syria and Iran.

McCain has not only forgotten the lessons of his own generation's war in Vietnam, he's forgotten what this generation learned in Iraq. He is eager not just for Israel to bomb Iran, which would set off a devastating regional conflict likely to drag in the United States, but for Washington to bomb Syria. On Monday, he became the first U.S. senator to call for air strikes on that country, and during a Senate Armed Services Committee meeting Wednesday, he admonished Defense Secretary Leon Panetta for failing to show leadership by "focusing on diplomatic and political approaches rather than a military intervention."

Panetta didn't take this sitting down; he said the administration was working to build international consensus, as it did in Libya, rather than taking unilateral action, and that as Defense secretary he has to know "what the mission is. I've got to make very sure we know whether we can achieve that mission, what price and whether or not it will make matters better or worse."

That's the part McCain either doesn't understand or doesn't care to discuss. U.S. military intervention in Syria in any form -- whether airstrikes or arming rebels -- would be extraordinarily risky. Syria is a powder keg of ethnic and sectarian factions with networks in neighboring countries; foreign intervention there would set off a proxy war that would further destabilize the entire Middle East.

To name just a few of the complications: In Lebanon, the politically powerful and heavily armed Hezbollah is committed to upholding the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad, and it's not unrealistic to think that a broader civil war in Syria could spread to its fragile neighbor. If Assad should fall, it would almost certainly lead to reprisals, and likely atrocities, against Syria's minority Alawite community, the regime's most important domestic backers. The Syrian opposition that U.S. hawks would like to arm is an unknown quantity made up of Islamic fundamentalists and other groups that aren't necessarily sympathetic to U.S. interests. Taking out Syria's air defenses would be nowhere near as simple as taking out Libya's and would require a massive U.S. military commitment; it also presents risks that it would prompt Assad to use his country's stockpile of chemical weapons, which is said to be 100 times the size of Libya's.

I could go on, but I doubt I could say it better than the International Crisis Group, which wrote in a recent report:

Frustrated and lacking a viable political option, Western officials and analysts have toyed with a series of often half-baked ideas, from initiating direct military attacks to establishing safe havens, humanitarian corridors or so-called no-kill zones. All these would require some form of outside military intervention by regime foes that would more than likely intensify involvement by its allies. Even if they were to provoke the regime's collapse, that in itself would do nothing to resolve the manifold problems bequeathed by the conflict: security services and their civilian proxies increasingly gone rogue; deepening communal tensions; and a highly fragmented opposition.

McCain's hawkishness is starting to turn off most of his fellow Republicans, and even if he had won the White House, he might not have been able to fulfill his neocon nation-building fantasies. Fortunately, it will take an alternative-fiction writer, rather than a journalist, to imagine the harm he could have done.

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Photo: Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) talks to the press Monday after calling for air strikes on Syria. Credit: J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press

So this is getting seriously stupid, all the campaign-season rhetoric about Iran.

First, President Obama, speaking Sunday to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, says:

"I will take no options off the table, and I mean what I say. That includes all elements of American power. A political effort aimed at isolating Iran; a diplomatic effort to sustain our coalition and ensure that the Iranian program is monitored; an economic effort to impose crippling sanctions; and, yes, a military effort to be prepared for any contingency.

"Iran's leaders should know that I do not have a policy of containment. I have a policy to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. And as I've made clear time and again during the course of my presidency, I will not hesitate to use force when it is necessary to defend the United States and its interests."

Sounds clear and tough-guy enough, right?

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Well, apparently not to Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who, The Times reported from Snellville, Ga., reacted to Obama's speech this way:

"If Barack Obama is reelected, Iran will have a nuclear weapon and the world will change," Romney told a crowd of more than a 1,000 people at a pancake breakfast that his campaign hosted in this Atlanta suburb.

When an 11-year-old boy asked the candidate how he would keep Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, Romney said Obama had not imposed "crippling sanctions against Iran." "He's also failed to communicate that military options are on the table and in fact in our hand, and that it's unacceptable to America for Iran to have a nuclear weapon.

"I will have those military options. I will take those crippling sanctions and put them into place," he said. "And I will speak out to the Iranian people of the peril of them becoming nuclear …. I'm not willing to allow your generation to have to worry about a threat from Iran or anyone else that nuclear material be used against Americans.”

Oh, and have some more pancakes, young fellow. I want you big and strong for when I send you off to war!

But seriously. Obama said all options were on the table -- and Romney still called him out. What is this, the second-grade playground?

C'mon, fellows, stop and think a minute. If you don't want Iran to develop a nuclear weapon, does it make sense to keep bombarding it with threats of military action? I mean, I'm pretty sure they've got the picture by now. 

Do you really have to make a bunch of paranoid types more paranoid? Isn't this why Israel says it fears Iran -- because it has threatened to destroy Israel?

So how do all of these threats to attack Iran make it want the bomb less?

The bottom line: This is political gamesmanship at its worst. Romney and the GOP candidates court pro-Israel votes by taking an ultra-hard line on Iran. Which forces Obama to hew to a hard line as well.

But it's a very dangerous game. It could lead to war. It could get lots of people killed.

And yes, for me, it's personal too: I have two sons.One just turned 18, at which point you are -- yes, still -- required to sign up with the Selective Service System.

Frankly, I'm getting tired of hearing pandering politicians cast about for votes by offering up the lives of other people's kids in the name of national security.

Take Romney's sons: Did he offer them up as cannon fodder? Check out this New York Times story in 2007, the last time he ran, when he was asked about whether they had served in the military:

Mr. Romney expressed appreciation for the country's "volunteer army" and said "that's the way we're going to keep it." He explained his sons had made different career choices in life and had not chosen to serve in the military, but he mentioned a niece whose husband, he said, had just been called up by the National Guard ….

But he wound up his response with this: "It's remarkable how we can show our support for our nation, and one of the ways my sons are showing support for our nation is helping to get me elected, because they think I’d be a great president. My son, Josh, bought the family Winnebago and has visited 99 counties, most of them with his three kids and his wife. And I respect that and respect all of those in the way they serve this great country."

Yes, well, Mitt, the campaign trail is a rugged place, that's for sure, especially in a Winnebago.

But ask the fathers and mothers and husbands and wives of the thousands of Americans killed in Iraq and Afghanistan about real war.

And then, just maybe, you -- and, frankly, Obama too -- might decide to take your finger off the trigger.

And quit playing politics with the lives of American kids.

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Photo: Mitt Romney speaks Sunday at a pancake breakfast at Brookwood High School in Snellville, Ga., outside Atlanta. Credit: Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

There are those who argue that America just doesn't produce the quality of political leadership it once did.

I've never bought that argument.  But I am beginning to wonder.

How else to explain a Presidents Day Gallup poll that found that, among the last eight commanders in chief, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton were the most celebrated:

Sixty-nine percent said Reagan would go down as "outstanding" or "above average," compared to just 10% who said "below average" or "poor." Clinton was rated favorably by 60% of those surveyed, a 10-point improvement from the last time Gallup asked the question in early 2009. Twelve percent rated him negatively, down from 20% three years ago.

Admittedly, the bar the last eight presidents set wasn't very high.  There's Richard Nixon -- enough said.  His successor, Gerald R. Ford, was in effect appointed. Jimmy Carter is seemingly everyone's favorite whipping boy.  And George H.W. Bush, the hero of Kuwait, fell victim to an unheroic economy, while his son, George, fell victim to Dick Cheney's hubris.

Reagan, of course, is a god among Republicans today, but Gallup found that even 47% of Democrats said he will be viewed positively in U.S. history.

And what did Reagan and Clinton do to earn such favorable ratings?  The poll doesn't answer that. 

But here's what respondents apparently overlooked:

For Reagan, there's the Iran-contra affair.  The one in which his administration secretly sold missiles to Iran (yes, that Iran), breaking a U.S. arms embargo.  It used that money to buy arms for U.S.-backed rebels in Nicaragua, breaking another U.S. law, this one forbidding the arming of those anti-government rebels.

But hey, you can't make an anti-communist omelet if you don't break a few laws, right?

And then there's Clinton, he of the impeachment.  Yes,  as in "one of only two presidents ever to be" -- the other being Andrew Johnson, who isn't on anyone’s list of top presidents.

However, Americans have apparently decided that they prefer the hanky-panky president who lied ("I did not have sexual relations with that woman") but brought them a booming economy, to his successor, who only lied about the war in Iraq and brought them a fiscal train wreck.

Of course, it's risky predicting how history will view presidents.

But before it was Presidents Day, it was George Washington's birthday -- for a reason. And I think history's verdict is clear on Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Now our generation has given the nation the Gipper and the Man from Hope.

The  best and the brightest, huh?

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Photo: Ronald Reagan with Bill Clinton in November 1992. Credit: Paul Richards / AFP

So what have the Syrians done wrong?

When rebels in Libya revolted against the regime of Moammar Kadafi last year, the West rushed in with air power when it appeared that the insurgents would be slaughtered by government forces.

And the airstrikes continued to the bloody end -- Kadafi's bloody death included.

But in Syria, antigovernment protesters have been fighting -- and dying -- for months trying to overthrow the regime of President Bashar Assad.

So where's the NATO air power?  I mean, what's a rebel group got to do for a few 500-pound bombs? Are the lives of Syrian rebels less important than those in Libya?

The cold, hard answer is yes. Syria's rebels aren’t going to get NATO's help.

Why? 

As we used to say in the Cold War days, it's realpolitik.

In truth, what happened in Libya is the exception in foreign affairs.  Just when you think a precedent has been set, there hasn't.

An example? Nuclear weapons.  North Korea -- all Western bluster aside -– is allowed to have the bomb. But the fact that Iran is trying to acquire one brings talk of World War III.

It's much the same with Libya and Syria. The West could afford to challenge Kadafi, who in the end had few outside friends.  But Syria, and Assad, have powerful outside allies, including, as we saw this week, Russia and China.  And, of course, Iran.

Overt Western action to promote regime change in Syria, then, risks a wider conflict.  The Libya action didn't pose as big a gamble.

For an excellent update on the situation in Syria, read Times staff writers Patrick J. McDonnell and Paul Richter’s story this week.  As they point out, the situation in Syria is more like that in Saddam Hussein's Iraq than in Kadafi's Libya. And we know how Iraq turned out.

So is the world forced to stand by while Assad butchers his own people?

Of course not. There are diplomatic tools available. The Obama administration and others are using them.

But that's cold comfort for the people in Syria fighting -– and being killed daily by -- an oppressive regime.

Unfortunately, it's the only comfort they're likely to get.

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Photo: Two Syrians evacuate an injured fellow opposition member in the northwestern city of Idlib this month. Credit: Associated Press

D'oh! I shouldn't have sent that Maggie Simpson doll to the orphanage in Tehran!

The Associated Press is reporting that the Iranian government is banning the sale in Iran of Homer, Marge, Lisa and Maggie Simpson  dolls.  An official of the Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults (maybe that was the third agency Rick Perry wanted to abolish) explained that the regime had put the kibosh on dolls that are "promoters  of Western culture."

However, images of Superman and Spider-Man are OK because "they help oppressed people and they have a positive stance." (In the case of Superman, there may be another reason:  In a story last year, he threatened to renounce his U.S. citizenship,  saying " 'Truth, Justice and the American Way'  -- it's not  enough anymore.")

Laugh if you want, but some people believe that the insinuation of American pop culture played a role in the decline of the Soviet Union. So maybe the idea of Bart Simpson as a suvbersive isn't all that far-fetched if you're an Iranian apparatchik. 

The best hope for the Simpsons may be that some Iranians will evade their government's censorship of the Internet and catch a glimpse of the lovably dysfunctional family online. Then they can make their own Simpson dolls, and disguise them.

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Photo credit: Fox Broadcasting Co.

If Israel really planned on attacking Iran's nuclear facilities, skeptics ask, would it be talking about it so publicly? Still, rumors that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may attack Iran before this summer has opinionators screaming waiiiiiiiiiiiiiit. Waging war would backfire, they warn, ultimately causing more trouble for Israel and, subsequently, the United States. Some argue that even if this is simply Israel engaging in saber-rattling rhetoric, the threats alone are damaging enough and should stop immediately.

In a recent Op-Ed, Chuck Freilich, who was a deputy national security advisor in Israel during Labor and Likud governments, wrote in our pages:

So herein lies the dilemma: a potential risk to the nation's existence versus the uncertain results of military action, the likelihood of a devastating Iranian/Hezbollah response, the risk of an end to the peace with Egypt and even a military confrontation and regional war, severe international opprobrium and a partial rift with the United States.

Rather than wage war, Israel should wait for economic sanctions to cripple Iran, writes the New York Times editorial board:  

President Obama has spent three years rallying the toughest sanctions ever on Iran -- including a European Union oil embargo. Tehran is increasingly isolated; its economy is reeling. The administration was right to warn Iran against any attempt to close the Strait of Hormuz. We hope it is also looking to privately persuade Iran of the need for a negotiated solution.

Israel must defend itself. This country’s alliance with Israel is crucial. We hope for everyone's sake that Israel's leaders weigh all of the consequences before they act. A military attack would almost certainly make things worse. Tough sanctions and a united diplomatic front are the best chance for crippling Iran's nuclear program.

Leslie H. Gelb, author of "Power Rules: How Common Sense Can Rescue American Foreign Policy," agrees. In an open letter to Netanyahu posted on the Daily Beast, he writes:

Economic sanctions weaken and divide them -- and often produce constituencies for compromise. Give sanctions time to play out. […]

And if it is to be war, it won't be only Israel's war. Yes, Israel will bear the greatest risks in a war now or a war if Iran has nukes. But even if Israel attacks by itself, Tehran also can be expected to strike at America, Europe, and elsewhere. And Tehran likely will unleash terrorists worldwide, possibly with chemical and biological weapons, plus hits on oil pipelines. So the decision to go to war cannot be Israel's alone. Both U.S. and Israeli officials tell me that the Obama administration is urging you to be cautious. In an interview Sunday, President Obama expressed solidarity with Israel and also said that diplomacy remains the "preferred solution." But you know, Bibi, that most times this White House is too nice about saying hard things to you. And maybe you won't get the message.

Let me spell out what I think President Obama is saying to you: the unprecedented economic sanctions against Iran are already hurting and will hurt a lot more over the next year. Let them bite more. Meantime, the U.S. and Israel are both underlining to Tehran that all options are on the table. (That's not a trivial phrase from a great power.) Israeli threats won't reinforce the pressure from the sanctions; they'll harden Iran's heart. And we'll all be heading for an incredibly dangerous war.

Juan Cole also sounds a warning to Israel via CNN's GPS section. He lists 10 reasons why Israel shouldn't attack Iran, including…

Oil prices will spike. I imagine you could easily see $150 a barrel or maybe even more. This development could throw the U.S. and Europe back into deep recession.

And he concludes…

It seems obvious to me that if all these developments actually occurred, they would be much worse for Israel than if Iran actually did start a weapons program and Iran and Israel replicated on a regional scale the Mutually Assured Destruction of the U.S.-Soviet standoff of an earlier era.

For some, Israel's rhetoric is dangerous enough. James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute, explains on the Huffington Post:

If this is the game, then Israeli saber-rattling and American outrage play right into Iran's hand. […] My concern is that the escalating rhetoric by all sides poses a danger, in itself. The region is a tinderbox, and it is as if everyone is too busy playing with matches to think of the consequences of their behavior.

But then there's the Daily Beast's Niall Ferguson, who argues that an Israeli attack on Iran may actually be a lesser evil. (Note: The Atlantic's James Fallows calls Ferguson's piece "the weakest case anyone has made in public for going to war, from a celebrity professor.")

The single biggest danger in the Middle East today is not the risk of a six-day Israeli war against Iran. It is the risk that Western wishful nonthinking allows the mullahs of Tehran to get their hands on nuclear weapons. Because I am in no doubt that they would take full advantage of such a lethal lever. We would have acquiesced in the creation of an empire of extortion.

War is an evil. But sometimes a preventive war can be a lesser evil than a policy of appeasement. The people who don't yet know that are the ones still in denial about what a nuclear-armed Iran would end up costing us all.

All of this commentary is beside the point for TruthDig's Barry Lando, who says we can't asses the situation honestly until we have the whole story. He writes:

Officially, however, Washington and Israel continue the ridiculous pretense that Israel has no nuclear weapons. To this day, Israeli reporters can write about their country's nuclear capacity only if they cite foreign publications as the source. And in the U.S., Washington's official silence seems curiously contagious: How often, in the current flurry of media reports about the threat from Iran, is there any mention of Israel's own nuclear arsenal?

The bottom line is this: Whatever your view about Iran or Israel's right to nuclear weapons, how can statesmen or reporters or anyone seriously discuss the current crisis over Iran when a key part of the dispute is officially hidden from view? How can the U.S. and Israel deal with proposals for a nuclear-free Middle East when they still refuse officially to acknowledge that the region is not nuclear free -- and hasn't been for the past 50 years?

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Photo: A worker rides a bike in front of the reactor building at the Bushehr nuclear power plant near Bushehr, Iran, in this 2010 photo. Credit: Majid Asgaripour / Mehr News Agency

Not surprisingly, there was a good deal of pandering at Thursday’s Republican presidential debate. With the exception of Ron Paul,  the candidates took a hard line on easing relations with Cuba, a sop to Florida's die-hard anti-Castro Cubans.

But the worst panderer was Mitt Romney on the subject of the Middle East.

"I believe the best way to have peace in the Middle East is not for us to vacillate and to appease, but is to say we stand with our friend Israel,” he said. “We are committed to a Jewish state in Israel; we will not have an inch of difference between ourselves and our ally Israel.”

“Not an inch of difference”?  Even if an ultra-right Israeli government abandons any effort to negotiate with the Palestinians?" Or annexes the West Bank? Or bombs Iran when the U.S. thought it was counterproductive?

Romney is essentially giving the Israeli government -– any Israeli government -– veto power over U.S. policy in the Middle East. Of course, a President Romney would never actually execute that policy. There is a long tradition of presidential candidates taking extreme pro-Israel positions on the campaign trail and, once in office, gravitating to the policy of past administrations, Republican and Democratic, of criticizing Israel  (albeit mildly) when appropriate.

Yet another reason for American voters, regardless of their view on Israel, to descend into cynicism.

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Photo: Mitt Romney speaks during the Florida Republican Presidential debate Jan. 26 at the University of North Florida. Credit: Paul J. Richards /AFP/Getty Images

I guess now we can call it the "Iran rule."

You know: It's the rule that says the United States must go to war with a country or risk loosing another Hitler on the world.

In 2003, of course, it was the "Iraq rule." Remember how George W. Bush and other administration officials and conservatives justified the invasion of Iraq by comparing Saddam Hussein to Hitler?

Although, to be fair, Bush was just following in the tracks of his father, who also invoked the Hitler comparison in deciding to oust Hussein from Kuwait in the 1990 Persian Gulf War.

If I didn't know better, I'd say too many U.S. policymakers have seen "The Boys From Brazil" and assumed it was a documentary.

Today's Hitler, though, is -- take your pick -- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or the mullahs who rule Iran. And they want Iran to be a nuclear power. And they must be stopped. And the U.S., of course, must do the stopping. And all options must be on the table, including military action.

Who says so?

Well, except for Ron Paul, every Republican running for president, for starters. Here's Mitt Romney:

"If we reelect Barack Obama, Iran will have a nuclear weapon," Romney stated unequivocally. "And if you elect Mitt Romney, Iran will not have a nuclear weapon."

But this is a bipartisan stance, it appears. As The Times quoted Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta on Sunday:

"Are they trying to develop a nuclear weapon?  No," Panetta said. "But we know that they're trying to develop a nuclear capability. And that's what concerns us. And our red line to Iran is, 'Do not develop a nuclear weapon.' That's a red line for us."

"I think they need to know that ... if they take that step, that they're going to get stopped," Panetta said, adding that he was not taking any options off the table.

Gosh, fellows, maybe you could all take a break from the Xbox and Call of Duty for a bit?  You know, get out for some fresh air?

Because honestly, I think the American people are just a bit tired of playing Hitler whack-a-mole.

And this is starting to give me 2003 deja vu: Everyone knows the Iranians are building a bomb, just like everyone knew Saddam Hussein was pursuing a bomb.

Except he wasn't. 

And even if the Iranians are, what makes everyone so sure they'd use it?

Ah, you say, just check what Ahmadinejad has said.

OK. Check what Romney just said. Check what Panetta just said. Does that mean we're automatically going to war?

If we went to war every time someone said something bellicose, we'd be going to war a lot -- uh, I mean a lot more.

We didn't want the Soviet Union to get the bomb, but it did. We didn't want China to get the bomb, but it did. Ditto North Korea. And Pakistan.

Each time, some argued -- as some, especially Israel, argue now about Iran -- that it would be Armageddon if the bad guys got the bomb.

Well, the United States has lived for more than 60 years with thousands of nuclear warheads pointed at it.

It's no picnic, but we're still here.

Plus, sanctions against Iran are starting to take their toll. They might work. At any rate, they don't cost nearly as much as a military action.

So why don't we give the war talk a rest. Hitler, after all, is dead.

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Photo: A U.S. sailor in a safety boat observes a boarding team from the U.S. guided-missile destroyer Kidd after Iranian fishermen were rescued from pirates in the Arabian Sea. Credit: U.S. Navy

Stop the debates, I want to get off.

Sure, the Republican presidential debates were fun at first. I mean, Rick Perry's "oops" moment alone -- when he forgot the name of one of three Cabinet-level departments he would do away with as president -- was worth the price of admission.

And they actually did what they were supposed to do: They separated the wheat (Mitt Romney) from the chaff (everyone else).

But really, must we go on? At this point even political junkies are beginning to search the phonebook for a nice comfy rehab center in Malibu.

Like a bad stand-up comic who just won't surrender the mike, we're left with stuff like this:

--Perry, during Saturday's ABC Yahoo debate, saying he "would send troops back into Iraq" if elected president. (An idea that gives a whole new meaning to "dumb." At this point, Perry is like a down-on-his-luck gambler in Vegas, desperately putting chips on red in hopes of winning his money back.)

--Rick Santorum, given a chance to make his case for why he should be president, saying that it was not the economy but Iran that was the most pressing issue facing the United States. (Note to Santorum: See James Carville re "It's the economy, stupid!) 

--Newt Gingrich, addressing the issue of gay marriage, calling marriage a sacrament long recognized in history as being between a man and a woman. (Or, in his case, between a man and several women, though not all at once -- sort of.)

Good grief. When we started, didn't every pundit say that this election would turn on the economy? Even the Republicans said so -- gleefully, given that the economy was in the tank last year.

So why are these guys talking about Iraq, Iran and gay marriage? And not only talking about those issues but saying really dumb things in the process?

Listen, guys, here's a tip, and it won't cost you a thing: Most voters will gladly trade you two Middle East countries and a "who cares?" social issue for job security and a raise.

But these candidates are like punch-drunk fighters. They're all Rocky Balboas at this point.

Please, someone, anyone, throw in the towel before someone really gets hurt.

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The Obama administration is minimizing as saber-rattling threats from Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz, although Washington has made it clear that blocking the strait would be an act of war. Chief Pentagon spokesman George Little said Wednesday that any disruption of traffic through the strait "will not be tolerated." 

The relatively  understated rhetoric contrasts with the robust stance taken by a past president.

Ronald Reagan? George W. Bush?  No, a president often derided as soft and a dupe of totalitarians. Yes, Jimmy Carter.

In his 1980 State of the Union address, Carter, with the Soviet Union's occupation of Afghanistan in mind, made this pledge (or threat): 

An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.

Carter's statement of U.S. policy came to be known as the Carter doctrine, which has pretty much disappeared from political discourse. If President Obama decides to ratchet up the rhetoric, it will be interesting to see if he invokes it by name.

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Photo: President Jimmy Carter on  July  15, 1979. Credit: Dale G. Young / Associated Press