Realist, I deny that your question about pinochet and allende; mossadeq and the shah; the khmer rouge or the vietnamese has any bearing on the topic since it has already been stipulated that the US has supported unsavory characters; although I don't believe we in any way supported Pol Pot. And we are directly responsible for Pinochet and the Shah. Right now, we have to walk the razor's edge with Iran in order to deal effectively with Syria. In ten years the situation might look entirely different. But engaging, as you do, in retroactive prophecy constitutes no great claim to intellectual ascendency, it merely demonstrates a firm grasp on the obvious.
The greatest threat to world peace, I personally believe, is Islamic Fundamentalism. Expand that to include fanatical fundamentalism of whatever philosophy and you've got the picture. However I believe that the fanatic Islamist is the most dangerous, and carefully selecting which rocks to step on while negotiating that stream is a task of Augean proportions given the labile behavior of the Arab world in general. What to do, what to do.
Who would you rather have deal with the problems in the middel east, problems caused in large measure by some British bureaucrat with a pencil and a map creating countries entire without regard to tribalism, or any other normal consideration of nation formation? Too bad it's too late to erase all those phony lines that created national "boundaries" after the fall of the Ottoman Empire.
Now. In what country would you rather live than the United States?
francois
