I read your article when a poster I respect furnished a link earlier. There's some merit there, and it is most certainly a factor, but not the deciding factor in Iraq or Iran. The author let his passion pull him a little too far from reason, not unlike what you are doing here.
The United States isn't even
a superpower anymore?
By what measure?... Reproduction? Not only do we have by far the most capable military and nuclear arsenal; we also still have nearly half of the wealth on earth. What measure do you use? The United States isn't only
a superpower
it is the world's only superpower. That's not a delusion of grandeur; it is an easily substantiated fact. I'd recommend the CIA World Fact Book for all manner of fact checking, be it financial, military, population, birth rates, death rates, you name it.
Not afraid of nukes either, eh? Some of our weaker H-bombs are
only about one thousand times more powerful than what was delivered to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Seems like something that could do a lot of damage, that.
And what precisely do you think the Israelis should do after living in Israel all these years? Leave? I could understand if you were merely asking them to return to 1967 borders or something, but you seem to think perpetual hatred of them for a land grab they didn't themselves facilitate is AOK. That sounds just to you? Tell me; do you still hate the Germans? How about the Japanese? Ugly, unfair things happen in wars (and in peace) but that doesn't mean civilized people can't get over it
especially after a couple generations go by. Now I'm not anti-Palestinian or anti-Arab, at all, but I do think the Israelis have a right to exist.
Israel: both you and the author you quoted severely underestimate their military prowess. If we left the Israeli/Palestine problem to work itself out, Israel would likely solve it very swiftly, in ways none of us would approve of. You would do to do some fact-checking on military muscle and learn where the military power is concentrated before commenting on it.
China: you think our dept to China puts them in the command seat sanction-wise? Really? While do stand to lose our cheap crap at Wal-mart and whatnot, they'd stand to lose their entire economy. China, contrary to popular opinion in the "America sucks club" is NOT a member of the MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) club... but they are close enough. There will be no war with China (we'd suffer too much and they'd be obliterated).
Iran: Ahmedinejad speaks like an unstable madman who, even as the leader of the land, has no more sense than to come right out and say Israel should be wiped from the map. So what if he builds the tools that could do just that? This strikes me as pretty naive. There are plenty of good things to say about Iran and if you look around A2K you'll find folks who do a fine job of defending them. You won't find too many critical thinkers defending the words of Ahmedinejad or the man himself because he just isn't worthy. I'd like to see him in control of an A-Bomb just about as much as I'd like to see Kim Jong Il in control of an H-bomb (again, that's 1,000 times more boom). Drawing cartoonish parallels to Bush are a sorry substitute for an argument. Whatever you may feel about Bush, I assure you, has no logical bearing on an assessment of Ahmedinejad... and the case against Ahmedinejad is a very reasonable consideration in deciding whether it matters if Iran gets a nuke. If you can't recognize that...
Relying on a single opinion is a recipe for erroneous conclusions.
I understand the article, in it's entirety, just fine... and even agree there's a dilemma over the Euro/Dollar Equation. However; if Bush isn't pressing for war in Iran, on the condition that Russians are going to fuel their reactor under IAEA supervision (which would, of course, have no bearing on the currency Iran chooses to use) your argument is mute. Quoting a faulty theory, over and over again will not add legitimacy to it. 