To save myself some time, I'll just post a few short responses here.

Tom and gbaikie: thank-you for responses that added, corrected, and examined Juan Cole's thought experiment. I agree with you both. Tom for the proper inclusion of starting conditions that remove the foundation of the arguement and gbaikie for recognizing the lack of a overwhelming superpower in the metaphor.

This is the way metaphors such as this fall apart when pushed. So yes, ebnelson, it is false equivalancy. But not an effort to avoid thinking. Quite the opposite. The point of such a process is to change perspective - for a moment or two. Sometimes interesting observations are the result.

FrankC pushes it in another direction, and again I agree, and I hadn't yet thought of that direction. That's a world we do not want. There are those who do want it though.

I agree with you too, SteveS. If it got to that point, I'd be right there by their side, contributing in anyway I could to restore a functioning society. I like civilization. (civil war: 618,000 dead over four years...I get more than 420 dead a day)

And alot of oil, R.L., one hellava lota oil. Cole didn't include multiplying the Iraq oil reserves by 11. We'd be swimming in the stuff.

Raoul's point is well taken. Not only not worth visiting, I might just be tempted to get the hell out of there and find someplace better. I guess that's why people are literally dying to get here.

Oh, LJ, sorry you missed the point of the post. It was to beat Andrew Sullivan to Juan's post by ~24 hours. ;->

~jms~

Anyone care to turn it around? Like this:

If Iraq were America, what would it be like?