After eight years, he is a leader in a hurry, ready to confront critics on a range of explosive issues: welfare and pensions, education and immigration, crime, terrorism and ID cards.
The question of EU workers touches on three explosive issues: Europe, migration and welfare.
And indications are that Mr. Bush's team may support Mr. Sharon's goal of seeking a long-term interim arrangement instead, deferring decisions on the explosive issues of Jerusalem and the Palestinian refugees.
During a recent interview, Mr. Barzani said he was determined to extract upfront commitments from any prospective coalition partners in Baghdad on potentially explosive issues like the settlement of disputed internal borders, including those of the oil-rich northern city of Kirkuk, and the sharing of oil revenues.
House and Senate negotiators reached a tentative agreement today on some of the less contentious items in a bill to provide prescription drug benefits under Medicare, and they said the action boded well for their ability to work out a compromise on politically explosive issues in the legislation.
To have moved in just a few weeks' time from a war footing to constructive engagement on two explosive issues has to be seen as a "good week".
Mr. Cameron's defense on Wednesday — and his continuing vulnerability — rested on two potentially explosive issues.
This week, the court is expected to rule on two politically explosive issues that could shape the contours of the presidential and Congressional campaigns over the next five months.
If a full agreement formally bringing an end to the 52-year-old conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians is not achieved, then the progress on some less explosive issues, like the shape of a new Palestinian state and the fate of Palestinian refugees, could be wiped out as the rock rolls back down the slope.
All over Houston, in an unusual display of ecumenical solidarity on an explosive issue, scores of pastors, priests, rabbis and ministers used their sermons on Independence Day to promote the cause of fixing a broken immigration system.
