I do not know who has felt this, but in the way and manner US President George W Bush issued the military action challenge to Iran - whilst still smarting over the Iraq mess - does leave many of us justifiably spooked.

A nation not unaccustomed to war in whatever form, there is something quixotic about the United States. It has this great love for adopting the lexicon of 'war' when battling anything it wants removed. This can range from poverty to gun control or to even how it is now seen prosecuting the current campaign against international terrorism.

So because war in American consciousness is a call to a national emergency to safeguard the preservation of her ideology and way of life; such calls are administered by a matching dose of 'responsible' rhetoric to bring it to pass.

If one wants a better introduction to show how the concept of war got 'glorified' in the American psyche, then the probable historical cut-off point may have been with its pioneering settlers who in encircled laagers moved heaven and earth to keep marauding native Indians, at bay.

What the legend of war told then that it was essentially an indispensable forum to dramatise the virtues of good versus evil. And because 'good' must be forcibly promoted - depending on whose definition it really is - the call to bear arms must provide enough of a catalyst to trigger spontaneity to move and mobilise opinion in favour of war.

War therefore, is the crucible that must be undertaken. Without it, the good that is sought becomes elusive.

Boring Europe

And then there are the emotional ones characteristic to the American national temperament of machismo depicted in mainstream American movies like Rambo III, Terminator and Black Hawk Down to name a few; as typical celebrations of Americanism.

If one were to compare all these movies and all other things American; Europe for its part becomes a boringly, tame counterpoise.

Her history, except for the mid-1990s when the Yugoslav conflict raged, has been very peaceable and even accommodative with sometimes oddly difficult neighbours like Turkey and Greece.

If history has ever taught Europeans something, it is to avoid war by whatever means possible. What that sore experience has taught Europeans is that life is certainly more meaningful, if one's sensibilities are refined enough to separate destruction from preservation.

America, by comparison which has never had a mainland invasion (the Pearl Harbour attack in 1941, only stopped there and did go anywhere else), was secure because it had the good fortune of a huge continental landmass. Besides, two mighty oceans buffeting her from either side made the thought of invasion a potential logistics nightmare for any would-be aggressor.

Because the calamity of war and its devastation has hardly visited her, the apparently cavalier way the second Bush administration is proceeding in its talk of war with Iran, stems really from lacking that experience and the collateral destructive power unleashed by the madness to move to war.

'Good' of everybody

And like the mentioned native Indian analogy, Iran's theocracy is now the new antagonist in that old forum where good has to battle evil, all because the United States wants her version of 'good' to prevail in the world. (Strangely, in this instance it has left out North Korea to do war with.)

Though it looks unlikely that an attack on Iran will spell horrendous consequences, the likelihood of Washington creating what it did to Japan after World War II, cannot be discounted. And, that is to impose American style cultural values undercutting as it did, the natural progression to a natural state as should have been with the now almost extinct native Indians.

And war, sure as anything hastens that process because as Washington avers it is for the 'good' of everybody, not realising that it is actually casting the world in an image not entirely in its natural state.

But Washington better be aware of history's ironies. By seeking Islamic modernisation, it might get it by attacking Tehran. But on terms, that may turn it into the most formidable yet of American foes.

Jaya Prakash lectures in journalism at Calton Education Centre.