Bill and Bangsmith are both spot-on, about our misusing out military might. Teddy Roosevelt summed up the proper policy in one sentence, a century ago: "Speak softly, but carry a big stick." That is, just the
knowledge that you can punish your enemies with overwhelming force ought to be enough to restrain them from aggressive behavior, under most circumstances. Once in a great while, you'll get governments like Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany, that are so power-crazed that they don't care about retaliation for their actions, but this doesn't happen very often.
Much more recently, we had the Powell Doctrine, which was the result of Colin Powell's experience in Vietnam. Once again, an experienced military man urged the U.S. not to use the force of arms unless we had no choice in the matter. However, as anyone who's followed recent history knows, Powell was elbowed aside and marginalized within the Bush administration by the Neocons, and it's their policy that's now being followed... with disastrous results that even a child could see.
The question that hangs heavily in the air right now, waiting for a definitive answer, is whether the Bushies are going to attack Iran. Just how they'll go about this, I don't know, since our military resources are already stretched to the limit, and maybe beyond. Just today, I heard a report on ABC News that a number of ex-Marines are going to be recalled to active duty because the USMC isn't meeting its recruiting goals. The story didn't specify just how many (some sloppy reporting, there), but it's probably going to be a few thousand, at least.
The supreme irony in the current situation is that Iran is
our mess, and Britain's. If the combined intelligence agencies of both countries hadn't overthrown the legitimately elected Mossadegh government in 1953 and installed a hand-picked puppet and dictator, the Shah, the Iranians probably wouldn't despise us today the way they do.
One thing that's absolutely true about the people in the Middle East, whether they're Arabs or Jews, is that they have
very long memories when it comes to past insults and abuses. Hell, Bin Laden and his bunch are still pissed off about the Crusades!
The ancient Greeks had a word for the way the Bush administration is behaving right now: hubris.
Addendum: I've learned that the number of Marines who are going to be recalled is 2,500.