Iraq was not a threat to the USA. Iran is not a threat to the USA.

It sounds like Dickey believes that Islamic fundamentalists ARE a real threat to the USA and to "democracy". Those were some of the assumptions I was speaking of.

Are you aware, Dickey, that every great aggressor empire in history has motivated its people to support its aggression by convincing them that its next choice target of opportunity was a threat to their very way of life? The truth is the exact opposite. The Empire itself is a threat to other people's way of life, everywhere it goes.

The Empire, at any given time, is simply that power which is predominant in money and firepower, and which controls the land, air, and sea lanes. That Empire, right now, is the USA.

The only time one finds relative stability internationally is when there are 2 or more empires of fairly equal strength facing off in a standoff, and neither one dares to get too far out of line. The possibility of that sort of stability ended when the Soviet Union broke up in '89, and we have seen a more and more dangerous world ever since, because there is now no adequate check and balance out there against the USA's imperial ambitions in the world.

But hey, one other possibility of relative stability exists, come to think of it, and that is when one great empire becomes so powerful, so totally dominant, that it basically takes over everything...or almost everything...and no one dares challenge it. Examples: The Pax Romana, and the Pax Brittanica (after the fall of Napoleon until 1914)

This is what the leaders of America would like to achieve, a Pax Americana, but they're not going to. It's beyond their capability. China will become the power able to counterbalance and eventually surpass the USA, in all probability. Time is on their side.

Do I want that? No. Not particularly. But I see that that is what is most likely to happen in the 21st century.