Too bad our current crop of leaders aren't as wise as our founding fathers and early leaders of this great country were.  In the formative years of this country the goal was to ensure that the people in our country, which was limited to the east coast of central north america, had the right to be free, and govern themselves...it was our inalienable right.   In our current leaders' extreme hubris, they view our founding as the starting point of the process that made us a world super power and it is our country's right to exert our power worldwide. 

Happy Independence Day...

It's easy to see how to arrive at an irrational fear of China.  Hugh population with seeming infinite blue collar work force, ambitious and transparently jealous, traditionally imperialistic, industriallized, technologically pretty competent but not seriously innovative.  Engaged in an indirect arms race with the militarized regimes at a distance from it. A mirror of the U.S. circa 1935.

But if you look at it in an informed way, from personal experience and understanding of the number it's genuinely hard to find a rational basis.  It really doesn't add up to a physical threat to Americans.  The Great Dream of Chinese society remains remarkably traditional- to make the Land of Two Rivers the Garden, the Eden, the Center of Accomplishment of the world.  The Empire At The Center of the World wants to be and remain just that, and the world of that definition extends from the steppes of the Altai to Japan or Guam and the Indian Ocean to the deserts and taiga to the north.

"The allegations that Iran's new president was a participant in the 1979 hostage-taking serve, to me, above all as a reminder of how little content there is to US-Iranian conflict. Instead, the hostage taking started us on a cycle of bitterness, suspicious, and hostility that have simply played out for a quarter of a century..."

In 1953, we overthrew Iran's democratically elected government over control of oil.

And Iran's post-'79 regional export of revolution would have put it in a position of severe hostility with the US even if the embassy takeover had never occurred.

"...to the point where the specific locations of US-Iranian conflict are premised on mutual antagonism between our countries rather than serving as genuine causes of conflict."

Beyond the long-standing acrimony, one current location of the conflict can be found in the fact that the US military is occupying two countries bordering Iran.

-----

There is lots and lots of content to the Iran / US dysfunctional relationship, both historical and current.

Concur?  My head asplode from word salad!

Yikes. Concur? I guess I should have picked a better daddy. Then I too could have gone to Harvard.

It is ironic that in a little over two-hundred years, we the people of the United States have thrown off the yoke of George III of England only to take on the yoke of George II of America.

Yikes. Concur? I guess I should have picked a better daddy. Then I too could have gone to Harvard.

Yep, I think it's awful that all those spelling classes they have at Harvard didn't work out well for Matt. A good friend of mine teaches Spelling 231 there, and she's generally ashamed at how bad the students are that she has to give passes to because of grade inflation.  She says its much worse in the Arithmetic department though.

The actual historical processes through which this peaceful zone has come to exist show, however, that though cultural and political affinities play no formal role in the demonstration of peace's value, they seem to be integral to its realization in process.

That seems too strong, though obviously cultural affinities help here. Australia went from seeing Indonesia as a major potential threat to a major potential trading partner in well under a generation without much significant change in cultural or political affinity. Maybe it helps when your defence forces really do see their job as defending the country against potential invasion rather than potentially usurping someone else's land. Then fairly simple things like a successful trading relationship can make a huge difference to how you view your neighbours.

At Yale, we learn how to spell. We also don't give degrees magna cum laude to any Tom, Dick, or Harry who can cobble together a thesis and get a B+ average.

Of course we don't have a holiday to commemorate another event just as deserving of fireworks: the restoration of the union after the Civil War. Maybe that's because unlike Independence Day, that would be an acrimonious, divisive occasion. Funny world, huh?

It's simply not true that anti-French feeling emerged out of nowhere during the Iraq crisis: hostility to France has deep-seated cultural roots in the Anglo-American world. Don't forget that it was only two-hundred-and-fifty years ago that the northern colonies faced rapine and slaughter at French hands -- the prevailing attitude towards all things Gallic changes, of course, with the political atmosphere, but there is an underlying atmosphere of distrust which goes back to at least the Hundred Years War, possibly 1066.

After spending the last 5-odd years in a state of perpetual outrage, I am of the firm belief that America's first and gravest mistake was winning the Revolutionary War. (Hey, for all his considerable flaws, Tony Blair looks like Washington, Lincoln, and Roosevelt all rolled into one, when compared to the current occupant of the White House...) Then, on top of this, we (the North, at least) have to go and win the Civil War!! (Think what the polity would look like minus the South. Ok, I honestly like Southerners, but I loathe being governed by a certain number of their ilk.) ;-)

Robert 

As for a Northern holiday celebrating Union victory in the Civil War,

Well, how about an inclusive, national holiday celebrating the fact that we all came to our senses for mutual advantage--something to consider if we ever come to our senses, anyway.

If both our countries' leaders choose wisely...

That's a mighty big 'if' you got there, Matt! Have you looked at our leaders lately? The words 'Bush' and 'wisely' are just too incongruous to be considered in the same sentence.

Perhaps it should have read, "If both our countries choose their leaders wisely..."

You wrote ... "At Yale, we learn how to spell. We also don't give degrees magna cum laude to any Tom, Dick, or Harry who can cobble together a thesis and get a B+ average. "

Yes, but you gave a diploma to George W. Bush in 1968. No amount of protest can erase that stain on Yale's blotter.

The Gettysburg address doesn't make an explicit distinction between Union and Confederate soldiers... unless you want to be narrow in your interpretation of "those who here gave their lives that the nation might live." Is it reasonable to assume that Lincoln meant to honor all the dead at the battlefield? I don't know enough about  national attitudes at the time to guess.