Time magazine are inviting people to vote for their person of the year. The shortlist is
Al Gore
Hillary Clinton
Hu Jintao
Steve Jobs
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Barack Obama
General Petraeus
Vladimir Putin
Condoleezza Rice
JK Rowling. 
To my mind, it has to be Petraeus. At the beginning of this year, Iraq looked like a lost cause but now thanks to his strategy there are real grounds for optimism. When you think of the consequences of failure—an emboldened Iran, a weakened America, a base for terrorists in the heart of the Middle East, the real risk of a region-wide sectarian war—you realise what a difference Petraeus has made.
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