glazznutz, I sorta agree with you.  especially about not taking care of russia pre-emptively when we had a chance (winston churchill recommended this very action, which fell on deaf ears, btw).  It definitely would've eliminated the cold war.  Oh well, we learn from our mistakes...thus I feel it's a good thing to pre-emptively take away the threat NOW, rather than suffer through 40 more years of Middle East (Cold War).  that make sense?