http://mvdg.wordpress.com/2007/10/05/would-the-world-be-better-off/

Would the world be better off if the US ‘lost,’ whatever that means, the war in Iraq?  The real question, it seems to me, is whether world would be better of with a huge regional war in the middle east?  The simple economic answer is obviously not.  But are there other answers?  Christian learned freedom of conscience, however roughly, in thirty years of war between Catholics and Protestants.  Thirty years before Christians figured out that killing each other over denominational differences was effing stupid.  Now as I look at denominational strife in Iraq, I wonder if religious tolerance, like democracy, is something that can’t be handed over but something that must be learned as hard fought truth.  Does Islam need its own 30 years war?  Would some ‘good’ come out of ‘losing’ this war?