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The author argues that the United States is using its status as the world's only superpower to try to control events through an unwinnable war on terror. The apocalyptic imagination has spawned a new kind of violence at the beginning of the twenty-first century. We can, in fact, speak of a worldwide epidemic of violence aimed at massive destruction in the service of various visions of purification and renewal. In particular, we are experiencing what could be called an apocalyptic face-off between Islamist forces, overtly visionary in their willingness to kill and die for their religion, and American forces claiming to be restrained and reasonable but no less visionary in their projection of a cleansing warmaking and military power. The war on Iraq--a country with longstanding aspirations toward weapons of mass destruction but with no evident stockpiles of them and no apparent connection to the assaults of September 11--was a manifestation of that American visionary projection. More than mere domination, the American superpower now seeks to control history. That entitlement stems partly from historic claims to special democratic virtue, but has much to do with an embrace of technological power translated into military terms. That is, a superpower--the world's only superpower--is entitled to dominate and control precisely because it is a superpower. The murderous events of 9/11 hardened that sense of entitlement as nothing else could have.

The article discusses the war between Iran-Iraq. The author state that as the sixth year of the Iran-Iraq war comes to an end, the prospect for a settlement seems hopeless. President of Iran Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini continues to demand the ouster of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein as a condition for negotiation and Hussein appears determined to remain in power at all costs. During the first eighteen months of the conflict, when Iraq occupied part of Iran, Khomeini asked for an unconditional return to the status quo, while Hussein sought a military victory. In June 1982, when Iran recaptured virtually all its territory, clerical rulers in Teheran debated the question of whether Iranian forces should pursue the Iraqi troops into their own country.

The article discusses a picture of United States Marine James Blake Miller after a battle in Falluja, Iraq. Iconic images inspire love and hate, and so it is with the photograph of James Blake Miller, the 20-year-old Marine from Appalachia who has been christened "the face of Falluja" by prowar pundits and "The Marlboro Man" by pretty much everyone else. For a country that just elected a want-to-be Marlboro Man as its President, Miller is an icon, and as if to prove it he has ignited his very own controversy. Yes, that is right: Letter-writers from across the nation are united in their outrage--not that the steely-eyed smoking soldier makes mass killing look cool but that the laudable act of mass killing makes the grave crime of smoking look cool. Impunity--the perception of being outside the law--has long been the hallmark of the President George W. Bush regime. At home, impunity has been made official policy with Bush's nomination of Alberto Gonzales--the man who personally advised the President in his infamous "torture memo" that the Geneva Conventions are "obsolete"--as Attorney General. In the name of "electability," Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry's campaign gave Bush five months on the campaign trail without ever facing serious questions about violations of international law.

The U.S. which helped bring Saddam Hussein and the right-wing Baathists to power in the first place, has always looked on Iraq as a blank sheet on which to scribble inane superpower slogans. This has made Washington, at different times, the enemy, the uncertain ally and the false friend of those who seek the removal of Mesopotamia's mustachioed ruler. One of defendants, a veteran anti-Saddam oppositionist named Hashim Qadir Hawlery was aggressively cross-examined about his membership in a secret Middle Eastern group named KLM.