Engineer-Poet,
"I believe that this icon no longer serves any useful purpose, and it should be allowed to retire to the museums and classic car shows."
Don't take it too personally, but I'm always weary of people who claim that the solution for the better (and, for that matter, the "common good") goes through the suppression of "useless relics of the past". First, it usually ends in a ghastly way, and next, this is not how progress works.
My view of progress is, I guess, understandable by anybody looking at the history of our specie, and particularly that of the West (In terms of civilization. That means including Australia and, yes, Japan for instance) since we devised Capitalism, the most fruitful period in history, as far as progress is concerned: anybody can dream up, conceive and create a workable and better alternative. If it really is workable and better, then it will naturally impose itself (and the former solution will fall into disuse and retire to museum quietly), because that's what Capitalism is about: aiming at the better.
If the preliminary requisite is to suppress coercively the former solution (the Communist way of "progress"), then it means the alternative is not good enough (even if it's just "not yet").
A friendly advice dear Engineer-Poet: engineering is good. Engineering society is not.
Having said that, I dare to repeat that we're mostly arguing on details but fully agree on the essence (no pun intended, although "essence" also means "gasoline" in French). There are indeed different fronts, and regime change in Saudi Arabia should be (is, I hope) at the top of the agenda "“ as far as we manage intelligently another crucial aspect of strategy: attrition. That was my point.
As for the Saudi money paying for Pakis nukes, I wouldn't be surprised indeed. But what with North Korea, and a double-faced Communist China? What with Iran? What with the grim perspective coming from Russia, and a Putin who starts to show a very unpleasant face?