It just means that the UK is not a real country, but rather a protectorate or colony of the US.
The UK (and all of Europe) is arguably a "protectorate" of the US. But the arrangement exists by choice, not by force; the UK and Europe are welcome to end the relationship anytime they want. Furthermore, the US may end it unilaterally, because it is getting quite expensive.
The UK is not, however, a colony or a "colonial protectorate", since it is still an independent nation that can make its own laws and choose its own alliances (at least as far as the US is concerned; whether the UK is independent from the EU is a trickier question).
The extradition arrangement is not reciprocal.
Yes, and the democratically elected government of the UK chose to enter into such an agreement and to maintain it. Presumably, the US offered them some benefits in return. For example, the UK government doesn't have to deal with some controversial legal issues (e.g., copyright, terrorism, etc.) themselves now, they can just send off the offenders to the US and let US courts take the heat for it. That may not be a benefit to the UK as a whole, but it is probably a benefit to the officials they elected.
Android development is about the most obnoxious type one can code for
True, Android APIs suck. But sucking isn't the same as fragmentation.
Anyway, I use Android and iOS quite a bit, and so I have a number of Android apps from iOS developers. Developers who started on iOS often seem to have a harder time producing Android apps that work across different devices and they complain about it. Android-only developers seem to be doing a better job.
Most apps work fine across all common Android versions; the only ones that don't are those that require functionality that just wasn't available on earlier devices. Most of the so-called "fragmentation" is things like manufacturer-specific apps and launchers. Those do exactly what Google says they do: they allow manufacturers to differentiate themselves from one another. That may not be a good thing (I prefer "pure" Android), but it isn't a problem.
I think a lot of the complaints from developers about fragmentation is complaints from iOS developers, who are used to an unusually rigid level of constraints across devices and have developed bad coding practices (like hard-coding coordinates and layouts etc.) because of it.
You have to start somewhere. It's not pretty, and it's not perfect, but without a beginning, you're never getting there.
But we haven't started. Obama has adopted the popular part that involves more spending, but done nothing effective to rein in costs. That is exacerbating the problem, not fixing it.
I agree. Right now, the US has just adopted a system similar to the German system prior to its introduction of catalogs and cost control measures. And that's just can't work. And, as you observe, implementing German-style controls on top of the US measure is likely politically infeasible. So the US has a real problem on its hands.
I think what may happen in the US is that basic health plans cut back their services to a cheap bare minimum, and everybody who wants more needs to add additional features to their plan. I think that could be a good system, provided lawmakers ensure that people keep their insurance even if they lose their jobs, and that insurance companies can't wiggle out of their obligations like they are doing today.
We as a society must determine if we should take care of sick people or leave them to suffer and some will likely die prematurely. If we do treat the sick how we must determine how to pay for it. That is not a "luxury", that is reality. If we don't find a way to pay for the care then we can't treat the sick
You're thinking of medicine in 20th century terms. The question is not "should we treat the sick", the question is "should we pay $250k so that someone with cancer has a 50% chance of living another 5 years".
If we determine that we will not treat the sick then we must say so now. There is no middle ground here and the math does not lie. If some service costs money then someone MUST pay for it. There is no free lunch.
But it is not a binary choice. A reasonable level of basic health care--treatment of common infectious diseases, simple malignancies, injuries--can be had for very little money, a few hundred dollars per person per year. It doesn't require sophisticated skills and can be covered with cheap, effective generic drugs.
But that's not what Obama promised and that's not at all what the health care debate is about. What people actually want is gold-plated medical plans that give everybody access to the latest and greatest treatments. That is what is causing health care costs to spiral out of control, and that is at the root of the problem.
Your premise is broken. Not everybody has any need to "consume arbitrary amounts of medical care". Indeed, only a handful of people do.
That used to be the case, but that's changing. It is getting to the point where many people can buy anywhere from a few extra weeks to a few extra years if someone is willing to pay, and those choices will increase: custom anti-cancer treatments, artificial organs, stem cell treatments, etc.
"A video game developer working for Kuma Reality Games has admitted that the company has been receiving money from the CIA to design and freely distribute special movies and games with the aim of manipulating public opinion in the Middle East.
You say that as if "manipulating public opinion in the Middle East" is something bad. Of course, we have to "manipulate public opinion", otherwise, how are we going to get peace?
What would you prefer? Leave them to the manipulations of religious extremists? Just bomb them outright?
That's the beauty of a universal healthcare system - everyone has access to the same treatment.
Yes, but how much treatment? What average lifetime medical expense should we provide? And how do we control those costs? If everybody can consume arbitrary amounts of medical care at other people's expense, costs and premiums are going to continue to spiral out of control.
What's sad is when I see people of all stripes debating against public healthcare
What's sad is when well-meaning people push through quick fixes that are not sustainable, and then accuse others of ill will. Obama's health care plan (like NHS) has failure programmed into it: it simply is not sustainable.
It's good that Obama's health care plan gets some people who have fallen through the cracks the help they need. You're a fool if you think his plan is sustainable. And you're a jerk for accusing others of not caring about the sick and dying.
European-style health care was a good idea a century ago and worked well for a long time, but it is at the end of its life due to changing demographics and the way medicine itself is changing.
Respectfully, I disagree that all other countries are as self interested as the USA. One only has to compare news coverage in various palces to see the difference.
I follow the German press. Based on its own self-image, Germany is ecologically responsible, generous with its foreign aid, and working hard towards diplomatic solutions. In reality, Germany is one of the biggest arms dealers in the world and keeps selling to war mongers and repressive regimes, dumps its toxic waste on third world nations, finagles its way around carbon limits, and is far below its foreign aid targets. (The list goes on.) The situation in pretty much the same with other rich nations.
And news coverage in other nations has a strong nationalistic bias, for a variety of political, historical, and social reasons. Forget about what reporters tell you--mostly they just repeat their own prejudices and collect anecdotes to reinforce them--look at the data and history yourself.
Geez, I thought it would be obvious that American politicians reflect the will of the American people, and the American people primarily care about their own wealth, safety, and well-being.
And if you think that is uniquely American, you don't understand human nature. If the people of your country (wherever it may be) are different, it's not because they are morally or culturally superior, but because they are forced by circumstance.
You know one of the reasons the rest of the world thinks you suck? Yeah, that's it right there, only US citizens have rights in your eyes.
Yup, US politicians put the interests and rights of US citizens ahead of others. If they didn't, they wouldn't get reelected, simple as that.
Europeans are always enormously bothered by this because, while they appreciate that Europeans have actually not been killing each other in large numbers for a few decades, deep down they hate the fact that their own governments have given up autonomy and rights to some nebulous, undemocratic bureaucracy in Brussels. And now you want to make everybody else as miserable as you.
They do have a standard for that kind of thing: Bluetooth.
I don't understand. How is Bluetooth a standard that lets me slot a choice of 3G modems into a tablet? ExpressCard is such a standard, but it is too large for tablets. A recessed USB slot would work, but there are no small and thin USB 3G cards.
I do think it would be nice to have the choice, but how many would actually use the built-in 3G capability? Consumers would rather tether than pay for two data accounts, and for most people those are their only choices.
The world isn't just the US; in other places, you can use multiple SIM cards with the same account. And I think that's going to happen in the US as well. Also, you might want to be able to switch carriers in the US.
Furthermore, even if you tether in the US, for travel, it's nice and more useful to put a prepaid SIM card in a tablet.
Sadly, there doesn't seem to be a 3G version of this tablet.
They should really come up with a standard small USB slot (similar to the express card, but smaller and USB-only) that would allow them to use the same tablet hardware for WiFi, GSM, LTE, WiMax, and CDMA devices. An industry-standard would be nice, but even an ASUS-only standard would be good. That way, they only have to get FCC approval once for the tablet, and they could keep their inventories smaller too.
Not even the most rabid anti-christian historians claim any hint of violence during the first 4 centuries of Christianity. 4 centuries.
That's because Christianity lacked the power, not the desire. As soon as it could, it used every means at it disposal to punish those that disagreed with the church, even on minor points. Arius and others were exiled in 325 over a disagreement on the nature of Christ's divinity. Priscillan was executed for doctrinal disagreement in 385, as soon as the Christian church was given the legal power to do so, the starting point for a long and extremely bloody history.
Even after that, Christianity has always been spread by absurdly small numbers of people.
That's the fairy tale of lonely missionaries spreading the light to remote corners of the world, surrounded by admiring natives gazing up at them. It's historically false. Christianity was largely spread in two ways: conquest by already Christian empires and conversions of rulers (often related to marriage or alliances, sometimes by promises of power and rewards), whose subjects were then required to adopt the faith of their rulers. The initial spread of Christianity was piggy-backed on the Roman empire, and later the Spanish and British empires.
It's all good and well to claim e.g. South America was converted by soldiers, but what I find sorely lacking in that explanation is how exactly ~ 2000 soldiers defeat tens of millions of people ?
There are plenty of books on that. But I don't even understand the question. Fact is that the Americas were conquered, a large percentage of its population exterminated, and the rest forced to convert to Christianity.
Contrast this with how pakistan became muslim : the most modest death tolls are talking about 200 million corpses.
The fact that modern Islam is even worse than modern Christianity doesn't make Christianity a benign or moral ideology. The lesser of two evils is still evil.
And the other choice is what, exactly ? An atheist socialist who acts like the Soviets, sees no reason to not kill a few hundred million people because he has some pseudo-scientific excuse (or military, or he just hates them, or doesn't like their ideology, or... does anyone have an exhaustive list of reasons the Soviets committed genocide ? It's gonna be a long list). In short I daresay that if this is the difference between a Christian communist and the atheist kind, then I'll take my chances with the Christian kind, thank you very much.
Do you really know so little about history that you think that the only two choices in the world are Christian theocracy or Stalinism?
And did you read anything I wrote? The problem is not with what kinds of beliefs you have in the privacy of your own home--no matter how stupid they may be--the problem is if you try to impose those beliefs through government, by turning nations into "Christian nations" or "communist nations". Christian government and Stalinist government both make that mistake, and the solution is not to make that mistake. Government should be secular and liberal (in the classical sense); it should neither promote theism nor oppose it, it should simply not meddle in religion at all.
As long as atheist "progressives" run amok
The great majority of progressives are Christians in the US and Europe. Large parts of Europe are governed by Christian parties who justify what you would call "progressive" politics with Christian theology, and their government panels are stuffed to the gills with "experts" on ethics sent out by Christian churches. The problem with progressives isn't whether they are atheist or theist (they are some of each), it's that they are unified in their belief that the government should engage in social engineering. Europe is an object
Well, only if you interpret it's goal of eventually converting every human, and "claim" the land they live on as a world-conquest goal.
Historically, Christianity has done it the other way around: first conquer, then conversions. That's how Christianity became the largest religion on the planet. Christianity and Islam are different by degrees, but both are too much focused on conquest and conversion.
Besides I've been there. While it's true that there is some measure of conservative Christians there, the prevailing conservative political ideology is ex-communists who changed their minds when they saw what huge damage was done
That's what a Christian is: a communist who uses God to justify their policies. Merkel is an excellent example of that; she grew up in a religious family, made it big in the communist party, joined the Christian party, and became chancellor. Now she is pounding her shoe on the table saying that Germany should become more Christian, and further increasing state power and redistribution of wealth.
(Mind you, I'm not opposed to some social safety net and a reasonable degree of taxes; but when such policies become an ideological stance rather than a utilitarian decision, they become the source of corruption and abuse of power.)
"The US seems to have been doing pretty well with classical liberalism" While running wars across the globe you mean ?
What I meant is that Americans are wealthy and fairly secure. And a lot of other nations are wealthy and secure as a consequence.
And if Europe got its act together, liberalized, and started defending itself instead of relying on the US, the US would be fighting fewer wars. US politicians should push for that more.
I'm not sure when this civil liberties that the US supposed used to be actually existed. Indefinite detentions, targeted killings, invasions of privacy, and infringements of civil rights are nothing new. And statements like "Peaceful protesters in Occupy movements all over the world have been labelled as terrorists by the authorities" are just meaningless FUD created by people with a political agenda to advance.
Politicians and political ideologies thrive on creating fear, because it lets them advance their own radical ideas as the only solution to the supposed ills of the country. Don't fall for it. Focus on clear and specific issues: SOPA, PATRIOT, Guantanamo, minimum wage, disarmament, alternative energy, CO2 emissions, whatever you think is important, try to make an argument and convince people. That's the way we make progress.
Your statements show you seem to be well-meaning but you actually have a cultural bias where you think that the Iranians couldn't effectively govern themselves if given a chance
Quite to the contrary, I think the Iranian people are probably more ready than the rest of the Islamic world for democracy. The US made a big mistake in toppling the democratically elected government of Iran in the 50's. I'm just saying that it was a stupid mistake, not imperialism, and that Europe had a big hand in it too. Furthermore, much as I think the people of Iran are capable of democracy, I don't want the current government of Iran to have nuclear weapons.
No one else has the power to help the Iranians throw off their theocracy and transition to democracy except for America.
If the US is forced to act, it will try to democratize a nation in the process, as it did in Germany, Japan, and is trying to do in Iraq. But despite some gung-ho right wing politicians, US governments, diplomats, and the US military are aware that trying that is costly, lengthy, and risky. Heck, in world history, this is really new territory.
The US is doing what it knows how to do: it talks to the democratic opposition and it imposes sanctions. But "democratic oppositions" often turn out to be the next dictator, and sanctions are slow and risky. In fact, I think there is a good chance that over the next few decades, Iran may reform and liberalize gradually all by itself.
So, I would say that US isolationism has failed in the future just has it has failed miserably in the past.
Well, as an American, I don't want isolationism, but I sure would like other nations to bear more of the military burden.
Or maybe Israel is just a convenient proxy that lets us threaten Iran with nuclear weapons without having to stick our own necks out, because this conflict isn't over Israel, it is over oil, combined with Arab resentment over the collapse of their empire.
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The UK (and all of Europe) is arguably a "protectorate" of the US. But the arrangement exists by choice, not by force; the UK and Europe are welcome to end the relationship anytime they want. Furthermore, the US may end it unilaterally, because it is getting quite expensive.
The UK is not, however, a colony or a "colonial protectorate", since it is still an independent nation that can make its own laws and choose its own alliances (at least as far as the US is concerned; whether the UK is independent from the EU is a trickier question).
Yes, and the democratically elected government of the UK chose to enter into such an agreement and to maintain it. Presumably, the US offered them some benefits in return. For example, the UK government doesn't have to deal with some controversial legal issues (e.g., copyright, terrorism, etc.) themselves now, they can just send off the offenders to the US and let US courts take the heat for it. That may not be a benefit to the UK as a whole, but it is probably a benefit to the officials they elected.
True, Android APIs suck. But sucking isn't the same as fragmentation.
Anyway, I use Android and iOS quite a bit, and so I have a number of Android apps from iOS developers. Developers who started on iOS often seem to have a harder time producing Android apps that work across different devices and they complain about it. Android-only developers seem to be doing a better job.
Trouble reading? I mentioned contacts.
Ubuntu used to be a great distro for education, academia, and general desktop use. It now is chasing futile dreams of dominating the tablet market.
Futile because almost no Linux developer writes tablet software, and it seems doubtful that a lot of them will start in the future.
The standard OS functions and APIs are the same across all devices, and backwards compatible between versions.
What is "modified" is software like the launcher and the contact app. That only rarely impacts developers.
Most apps work fine across all common Android versions; the only ones that don't are those that require functionality that just wasn't available on earlier devices. Most of the so-called "fragmentation" is things like manufacturer-specific apps and launchers. Those do exactly what Google says they do: they allow manufacturers to differentiate themselves from one another. That may not be a good thing (I prefer "pure" Android), but it isn't a problem.
I think a lot of the complaints from developers about fragmentation is complaints from iOS developers, who are used to an unusually rigid level of constraints across devices and have developed bad coding practices (like hard-coding coordinates and layouts etc.) because of it.
But we haven't started. Obama has adopted the popular part that involves more spending, but done nothing effective to rein in costs. That is exacerbating the problem, not fixing it.
I agree. Right now, the US has just adopted a system similar to the German system prior to its introduction of catalogs and cost control measures. And that's just can't work. And, as you observe, implementing German-style controls on top of the US measure is likely politically infeasible. So the US has a real problem on its hands.
I think what may happen in the US is that basic health plans cut back their services to a cheap bare minimum, and everybody who wants more needs to add additional features to their plan. I think that could be a good system, provided lawmakers ensure that people keep their insurance even if they lose their jobs, and that insurance companies can't wiggle out of their obligations like they are doing today.
You're thinking of medicine in 20th century terms. The question is not "should we treat the sick", the question is "should we pay $250k so that someone with cancer has a 50% chance of living another 5 years".
But it is not a binary choice. A reasonable level of basic health care--treatment of common infectious diseases, simple malignancies, injuries--can be had for very little money, a few hundred dollars per person per year. It doesn't require sophisticated skills and can be covered with cheap, effective generic drugs.
But that's not what Obama promised and that's not at all what the health care debate is about. What people actually want is gold-plated medical plans that give everybody access to the latest and greatest treatments. That is what is causing health care costs to spiral out of control, and that is at the root of the problem.
That used to be the case, but that's changing. It is getting to the point where many people can buy anywhere from a few extra weeks to a few extra years if someone is willing to pay, and those choices will increase: custom anti-cancer treatments, artificial organs, stem cell treatments, etc.
You say that as if "manipulating public opinion in the Middle East" is something bad. Of course, we have to "manipulate public opinion", otherwise, how are we going to get peace?
What would you prefer? Leave them to the manipulations of religious extremists? Just bomb them outright?
Yes, but how much treatment? What average lifetime medical expense should we provide? And how do we control those costs? If everybody can consume arbitrary amounts of medical care at other people's expense, costs and premiums are going to continue to spiral out of control.
What's sad is when well-meaning people push through quick fixes that are not sustainable, and then accuse others of ill will. Obama's health care plan (like NHS) has failure programmed into it: it simply is not sustainable.
It's good that Obama's health care plan gets some people who have fallen through the cracks the help they need. You're a fool if you think his plan is sustainable. And you're a jerk for accusing others of not caring about the sick and dying.
European-style health care was a good idea a century ago and worked well for a long time, but it is at the end of its life due to changing demographics and the way medicine itself is changing.
I follow the German press. Based on its own self-image, Germany is ecologically responsible, generous with its foreign aid, and working hard towards diplomatic solutions. In reality, Germany is one of the biggest arms dealers in the world and keeps selling to war mongers and repressive regimes, dumps its toxic waste on third world nations, finagles its way around carbon limits, and is far below its foreign aid targets. (The list goes on.) The situation in pretty much the same with other rich nations.
And news coverage in other nations has a strong nationalistic bias, for a variety of political, historical, and social reasons. Forget about what reporters tell you--mostly they just repeat their own prejudices and collect anecdotes to reinforce them--look at the data and history yourself.
Geez, I thought it would be obvious that American politicians reflect the will of the American people, and the American people primarily care about their own wealth, safety, and well-being.
And if you think that is uniquely American, you don't understand human nature. If the people of your country (wherever it may be) are different, it's not because they are morally or culturally superior, but because they are forced by circumstance.
Yup, US politicians put the interests and rights of US citizens ahead of others. If they didn't, they wouldn't get reelected, simple as that.
Europeans are always enormously bothered by this because, while they appreciate that Europeans have actually not been killing each other in large numbers for a few decades, deep down they hate the fact that their own governments have given up autonomy and rights to some nebulous, undemocratic bureaucracy in Brussels. And now you want to make everybody else as miserable as you.
I don't understand. How is Bluetooth a standard that lets me slot a choice of 3G modems into a tablet? ExpressCard is such a standard, but it is too large for tablets. A recessed USB slot would work, but there are no small and thin USB 3G cards.
The world isn't just the US; in other places, you can use multiple SIM cards with the same account. And I think that's going to happen in the US as well. Also, you might want to be able to switch carriers in the US.
Furthermore, even if you tether in the US, for travel, it's nice and more useful to put a prepaid SIM card in a tablet.
Sadly, there doesn't seem to be a 3G version of this tablet.
They should really come up with a standard small USB slot (similar to the express card, but smaller and USB-only) that would allow them to use the same tablet hardware for WiFi, GSM, LTE, WiMax, and CDMA devices. An industry-standard would be nice, but even an ASUS-only standard would be good. That way, they only have to get FCC approval once for the tablet, and they could keep their inventories smaller too.
That's because Christianity lacked the power, not the desire. As soon as it could, it used every means at it disposal to punish those that disagreed with the church, even on minor points. Arius and others were exiled in 325 over a disagreement on the nature of Christ's divinity. Priscillan was executed for doctrinal disagreement in 385, as soon as the Christian church was given the legal power to do so, the starting point for a long and extremely bloody history.
That's the fairy tale of lonely missionaries spreading the light to remote corners of the world, surrounded by admiring natives gazing up at them. It's historically false. Christianity was largely spread in two ways: conquest by already Christian empires and conversions of rulers (often related to marriage or alliances, sometimes by promises of power and rewards), whose subjects were then required to adopt the faith of their rulers. The initial spread of Christianity was piggy-backed on the Roman empire, and later the Spanish and British empires.
There are plenty of books on that. But I don't even understand the question. Fact is that the Americas were conquered, a large percentage of its population exterminated, and the rest forced to convert to Christianity.
The fact that modern Islam is even worse than modern Christianity doesn't make Christianity a benign or moral ideology. The lesser of two evils is still evil.
Do you really know so little about history that you think that the only two choices in the world are Christian theocracy or Stalinism?
And did you read anything I wrote? The problem is not with what kinds of beliefs you have in the privacy of your own home--no matter how stupid they may be--the problem is if you try to impose those beliefs through government, by turning nations into "Christian nations" or "communist nations". Christian government and Stalinist government both make that mistake, and the solution is not to make that mistake. Government should be secular and liberal (in the classical sense); it should neither promote theism nor oppose it, it should simply not meddle in religion at all.
The great majority of progressives are Christians in the US and Europe. Large parts of Europe are governed by Christian parties who justify what you would call "progressive" politics with Christian theology, and their government panels are stuffed to the gills with "experts" on ethics sent out by Christian churches. The problem with progressives isn't whether they are atheist or theist (they are some of each), it's that they are unified in their belief that the government should engage in social engineering.
Europe is an object
There are many former Stasi informers who are probably more than happy to apply their organizational and informant skills to this new challenge.
Historically, Christianity has done it the other way around: first conquer, then conversions. That's how Christianity became the largest religion on the planet. Christianity and Islam are different by degrees, but both are too much focused on conquest and conversion.
That's what a Christian is: a communist who uses God to justify their policies. Merkel is an excellent example of that; she grew up in a religious family, made it big in the communist party, joined the Christian party, and became chancellor. Now she is pounding her shoe on the table saying that Germany should become more Christian, and further increasing state power and redistribution of wealth.
(Mind you, I'm not opposed to some social safety net and a reasonable degree of taxes; but when such policies become an ideological stance rather than a utilitarian decision, they become the source of corruption and abuse of power.)
What I meant is that Americans are wealthy and fairly secure. And a lot of other nations are wealthy and secure as a consequence.
And if Europe got its act together, liberalized, and started defending itself instead of relying on the US, the US would be fighting fewer wars. US politicians should push for that more.
I'm not sure when this civil liberties that the US supposed used to be actually existed. Indefinite detentions, targeted killings, invasions of privacy, and infringements of civil rights are nothing new. And statements like "Peaceful protesters in Occupy movements all over the world have been labelled as terrorists by the authorities" are just meaningless FUD created by people with a political agenda to advance.
Politicians and political ideologies thrive on creating fear, because it lets them advance their own radical ideas as the only solution to the supposed ills of the country. Don't fall for it. Focus on clear and specific issues: SOPA, PATRIOT, Guantanamo, minimum wage, disarmament, alternative energy, CO2 emissions, whatever you think is important, try to make an argument and convince people. That's the way we make progress.
Quite to the contrary, I think the Iranian people are probably more ready than the rest of the Islamic world for democracy. The US made a big mistake in toppling the democratically elected government of Iran in the 50's. I'm just saying that it was a stupid mistake, not imperialism, and that Europe had a big hand in it too. Furthermore, much as I think the people of Iran are capable of democracy, I don't want the current government of Iran to have nuclear weapons.
If the US is forced to act, it will try to democratize a nation in the process, as it did in Germany, Japan, and is trying to do in Iraq. But despite some gung-ho right wing politicians, US governments, diplomats, and the US military are aware that trying that is costly, lengthy, and risky. Heck, in world history, this is really new territory.
The US is doing what it knows how to do: it talks to the democratic opposition and it imposes sanctions. But "democratic oppositions" often turn out to be the next dictator, and sanctions are slow and risky. In fact, I think there is a good chance that over the next few decades, Iran may reform and liberalize gradually all by itself.
Well, as an American, I don't want isolationism, but I sure would like other nations to bear more of the military burden.
Or maybe Israel is just a convenient proxy that lets us threaten Iran with nuclear weapons without having to stick our own necks out, because this conflict isn't over Israel, it is over oil, combined with Arab resentment over the collapse of their empire.