My contention Tom is that Pan-Arabic war is coming whether we want it or not. The evolution there can't be controlled by an outside power. My guess also is the longer it takes for that war to break out, the worse the eventual toll will be so I'm not sluffing off the potential carnage.

This is the Foundation Trilogy we're witnessing here Tom. Actions or lack of action today can change the dynamic drastically decades and even centuries from now. Our present "plan" has no end to it. That is making itself clearer every day.

I will never let you get away with assumptions about how Hitler's threat would've played out had we not intervened when we did. History clearly shows that agressive despotic rulers inevitably fail, often from within. You do know that the defeat of the Nazis greatly empowered the tyrants in the Soviet Union don't you? Have you ever considered where history would've gone had Hitler succeeded more in Russia and humbled Stalin and his thugs? Perhaps the horrible abuses of communism in the decades that followed would've never occurred.

Let's say worst case happened and Hitler and Hirohito had astounding success. Just how cozy of bedfellows do you think those two would've been? Last I looked, Japanese don't look so Aryan to me. Power and military success always creates a vacuum that sprouts more evil and power. There's never an end Tom. In some way, we're still fighting every war we ever engaged in. We have huge military contingents in Germany and Japan. Southerners still despise Northerners in our own country. Our native Americans will never lose their sense of shame and anger over the conquest of this land.

The only thing that simmers down the tensions is periods of prolonged peace where angered generations can die out and stop passing on the avarice. Also needed is governmental policy of good example that doesn't recreate the enemies as they fade naturally.

Art