The Saudis paid for the Paki nuke program, based on the agreement to sell them one when it becomes politically expedient.

Arm both sides to maintain a stalemate and wait for them to kick the fight out of each other?

Sounds like a viable third option to me. Worked during Iran/Iraq, now _that_ was a good war.

Even better would be ISIS fighting the Iranians. Like the good old days of the Iran/Iraq war all over again.

Of course nobody thinks Bush and staff were thinking at all, so they couldn't possibly have been playing chess with an end game of two of our enemies fighting each other.

Discussing this outside the context of cold war pawn engagements is intellectually dishonest.

Is 'Afghanistan and Iraq are indistinguishable in terms of their foreign policy from the USA's point of view' a good argument for the second Iraq invasion?

There goes your argument.

Less than you would imagine. Post WWII we were playing pawn wars with the Soviets. Who were full tilt NAZI like evil bastards.

By way of comparison. The Germans and Japanese backed the democratic self rule insurgency in India during WWII. Finding a light grey pawn to back doesn't make them the 'good guys'.

So demonstrate it or shut the fuck up you halfwit.

The way to do it is to wait for the population density to get high enough that transit makes sense. You don't appear to understand the underlying economics.

The roads would go to shit without all the gas tax revenue and political support.

No difference for Michigan residents, but for the rest of us, it matters.

My slow non stock car is plenty fast. I never get a chance to open it up for long. I outran an idiot in a Maserati the other week (he clearly couldn't drive). Boy was he pissed. I think he might have hurt his car at the second launch.

My preference it for quick over fast for driving in traffic. There is nothing quite as fun as out-driving someone with money but no skills.

And all but the most extreme sports cars are suspended on mush. If I'm going to have to rework a car to suit me, I might as well build a sleeper.

My point was that you have to separate the impress the other idiots cost from the transport costs.

An iWatch doesn't cost $10k. Some do, but that is the cost of 'shiny'.

Good shoes are also sunk costs.

You don't know what an 'order of magnitude' is?

Also note: Basically no electricity outside of Hawaii and similar is generated from oil.

Cars are status symbols. If they didn't have that 'new shiny', they would have to find something else to waste their money on.