Fusion Steps Forward? Mesopotamia Steps Back?

I saw this news story today about Chinese scientists conducting successful tests on a fusion reactor. Now, of course no one says what these tests actually were, or whether the reactor reached breakeven, but still, this is even the first time I've heard that the Chinese were developing a fusion reactor. So much for that decades-slow progress on the international reactors.

I know China is a developing country, and that even many of its accomplishments are perhaps overrated, but at the same time it seems to me that it is acting as a catalyst here: perhaps other countries will be spurred into researching fusion more thoroughly (admittedly it has been an ongoing project for 30 years without much payoff).

Also, through my internet trollings, I found some of the latest on Iraq. The fact that this war is hardly even reported in the news any more shows just what a disaster it has been: even worse, it appears that since the Coalition military limits its actual presence in Iraq (to avoid casualties?) , it has a minimal impact on the slow-motion trainwreck that is unfolding. Apparently the world doesn't care as long as its only Iraqis that are doing the fighting and dying.

I sometimes wonder just why this conflict got started. Weapons of mass destruction and links to terrorism obviously have been discredited: I honestly never believed those claims, but more on that later. Removing Saddam Hussein from power was honestly a plus, but since then his shambolic trial seems to have done little to bring a verdict and justice on this dictator. There is the "cause celebre" of terrorism issue, the whole issue with European powers (whether one cares for them or not), and the fact that it seems precious few in either the US or UK administrations can admit that something has gone wrong.

Why do I mention this? It is because, as I said, the Iraq project has failed, more than because it is unpopular: most of the people initially opposing the Iraq war oppose any American-led war (anyone remember the anti-war bunch before the 2001 Afghanistan invasion? And they were often the same people distributing flyers and emails about the plight of Afghani women and how something needed to be done ... so much for consistency). This certainly isn't a war for oil: that's another popular slogan that has no basis in reality.

The sad fact is that this war was a war to "prove" certain pet theories that members of the administration had, namely (among others) the democratic peace theory (that as soon as Iraq had elections it wouldn't threaten its neighbors), and that the Rumsfeld doctrine of light, supermodern warfare was feasible. The American people, in their post-9/11 shock, were easily duped into thinking that Iraq and 9/11 were connected, and the rest is history. It's interesting how even this month, five years on, 9/11 can be so easily invoked in the public forum to further parochial political agendas.