Which comes first: paranoia or power? I sit in the dark. Flashing before me, a line: "When you have a hammer, all problems start to look like nails".

The TV screen blabs on almost incessantly. CNN and BBC bring "The War in Iraq"—or, in other words, a hammer more than adequate for the job, smashing away at a half-rusty nail. And it is not clear why.

A superpower with an unrivaled military budget. An economy that is the richest in the w