The scope of the imperialist mindset and blinders in the American government is breathtaking. The towering arrogance that we display when we openly declare that we are attempting to overthrow another government because we don't like their government, even though the government in question is not a threat to us, makes it clear that we think somebody died and made us God. If we wish to accomplish good in this world, we will have to shed the imperialist mind set and we will have to learn that the rest of the world sees our behavior in the cold light of day and not through the rose colored glasses of administration spin.

While Mr. Galbraith accurately describes American behavior in the Middle East as a strategic disaster, he does little to support this contention in his article. The article itself mostly describes why American actions have largely failed to attain their desired objectives. The strategic disaster is to be found in the consequences of American actions rather than a description of their failure. For example:

A point not clearly made in the article is that the Iran-Iraq war was started by Iraq, and not Iran. The US did not support Saddam Hussein because they feared Iranian influence in Iraq. We explicitly/implicitly goaded Hussein to attack Iran because we were still pissed off about the hostage crisis. We then pressured the world not to provide arms to Iran for their efforts to defend themselves. The strategic consequence of this was that the Iranians developed an arms industry, something that they had not previously possessed. No longer will the Iranians be unable to breech the Iraqi lines, as it were, because the US has cut off their arms supply. So we created a new arms maker, capable of making tanks, and missiles, and aircraft. Great.

Our crusade against the Islamic world has created a vast well of hate and discontent in that world. We will pay for that hate and discontent in future lives. I, too, lived in pre-revolutionary Iran and spoke Farsi and at that time, Iranians were generally favorably inclined to the US. I doubt that's true today and you don't see American/Iranian negotiations going anywhere, do you?

Our hypocracy on a number of issues has cost us our image of impartial observer. Everything from our mindless support for anything Israeli to our desire to see a "liberal" democracy in Iran undermines that image of impartiality. A theocracy is not OK in Tehran but is OK in Tel Aviv and Jidda. We complain about Iranian governmental interference in their own elections (and leave us not forget that the government in Tehran is elected, not imposed, like the Shah) but as the attorneys general scandal has revealed, not only can it happen here, it does happen here.

Our behavior needs to be consistent with our rhetoric. We need to give up our imperialist ways and realize that influence does not flow from a gun barrel. That has another name - coercion and coercion generally only lasts as long as you've got the gun in the other guy's face. After that you generally have someone who's going to make damn sure you can't do that again.

Iran is full of some very nice people who, when I lived there, were very favorably inclined to the United States. It's unfortunate that their government is being run by the Jerry Falwells, Pat Robertsons, and Sam Brownbacks of the Islamic world but that's their problem. Their president deserves better treatment than this. Why anyone with two brains to rub together would conflate the 9/11 hijackers who were all Sunni and largely Saudi with Iran is beyond me.

If an American vice president were treated like this, arrest threats, insults, snubs, etc, this country would probably be foaming at the mouth. Have we become a nation that deliberately goes out of its way to piss people off? Personally, I'd rather have a room full of friendly people rather than a room full of hostile ones.

Your reaction to Mr. Bollinger's comments is interesting. Some of the factual questions are certainly fair enough but given the forum disingenuous. The Iranian President was there to give a speech, not engage in a debate with Columbia's President. If Mr. Bollinger had posed the questions during the Q & A sessions that would certainly have been fair enough but saying that he doubted that the Iranian President had the intellectual courage to respond to the questions when the Iranian was really in no position to do so is certainly cheating.

As for idiots like Mr. Liberman and his ilk screaming about blood on Iranian hands, what the hell does he think he has on his hands? The blood of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi's killed in an unjustified, illegitimate war. I believe the relevant biblical injunction is: remove the beam from thine eye before you complain about the mote in mine.