@Typo-MAGAshiv Yes really. Civilisation is not about about being western. That is biggest mistake the US makes. It leads the world but that does not make it the most civilised country on earth. It needs to realise that other versions are on offer and work to sell its own version, not assume that it will naturally assert itself because it is superior just because US power is superior.

I didn't want to send off some knee jerk response to someone whose thoughts I respect, so to make sure I was not being factual in writing this reply and that I was not using my own, perhaps outdated definition of civilisation, I went to check what was the most commonly agreed definition.

Wikipedia; A civilization (or civilisation) is any complex society characterized by the development of the state, social stratification, urbanization, and symbolic systems of communication beyond natural spoken language (namely, a writing system).Civilizations are additionally characterized by specialization of labour, agriculture, architecture, infrastructure, technological advancement, taxation, and regulation. This is the definition I mean.

Oxford dictionaries AI answer;

1. the stage of human social and cultural development and organization that is considered most advanced. This definition is ignorant and full of hybris.

British academia has evidently fallen victim to a dangerous delusion. I fear they caught it from US academics or perhaps British academia got it first in the days they were top dog? Either way informed people must not catch this delusion.

A county like Iran that borders Mesopotamia is deeply civilised and has civilisation steep into its fabric far more than the US that still celebrates mountain men and cowboys millennia after Gilgamesh civilised Enkidu. (Amusingly, if I recall by giving him a whore who then gives him a beer and that's Enkidu ruined. I always preferred the mountain men myself).

@Typo-MAGAshiv It was a pretty meaningless deal. Two enemies negotiated in bad faith. Neither got anything they wanted except to stop negotiating unsuccessfully.

The more powerful nation wanted to keep the other down, so it was never going to offer the weaker power anything meaningfully good, only the chance of less pain if it complied. The less powerful nation wanted to quietly gain a powerful tool that its enemies have that might get it taken more seriously but it had to lie and pretend it wouldn't seek the tool it really wants in return for slightly less pain. How was a deal like that ever going to last?

In the end this one will only be won by actions. It is almost impossible to turn an enemy into a neutral nation by offering the absence of fear or suffering. You have to actually create a positive vision of a place for that nation at your table or defeat it. Either positive actions in diplomacy are needed or victory.

You can't achieve victory without boots on the ground. Boots on the ground require resources. When you have a huge debt and a proxy war draining you, a new war is a poor investment, particularly when you sell yourself as a police man not a conqueror, when you hand back shattered countries to embittered citizens not keep them as resources.

When the US puts boots on the ground in muslim countries it has a good record of short term success and a terrible record of long term success. It does not know how to offer a civilised non western country a vision that it can buy into. Not everyone thinks that a slightly higher standard of living is worth the cost of being ruled by liberal values and the fiat dollar.

@carnold03 It really looks like the US will make the same old mistake again. -Go smash some arabs because that will teach them.

It might slow them getting the atom bomb but it will only fertilise the next crop of Israel and US haters. In fairness I think there was going to be a good crop anyway but why fertilise a crop you do not want?

Killing the leaders of a people who want you all dead just sets your intelligence service back a while -you have to find out who the new crew are and find and pay new traitors to get tabs on them. It does nothing to change the trajectory of feeling in that country. It just proves the last lot in charge were right, they need to arm more and purge traitors more as there is a real threat.

All the while this costs a heavily indebted country that needs the rest of the world to not find a new reserve currency.

I dare say US arms dales have stabilised because the right are no longer getting more afraid of their leadership either trying to steal their freedom or not dealing with civil unrest.