Willravel

There are places in the world that are still tribal, but the US is not one of them. Moreover, as societies progress, they eventually move away from tribalism as it's no longer necessary. The idea that there even should be a top dog is outdated, something left to people that haven't yet moved to a place where they can comprehend where the world is heading.

Europe is easily matched with the US economically and militarily, and soon the same will be true of China. When we're looking at three equal powers, top dog has to be left behind so that we can move on to what's next: global democracy.
I'm sure it seems that way, but the inspector program has actually been a sweeping success. The author of the article I cited in the OP was a weapons inspector and he obviously has insight that our own intelligence community lacks.
The last 20 years of inspecting have been damned reliable, though. Inspectors went into Iraq repeatedly (yes, they were prevented several times, but that's less important now) and they came back with conclusive and unanimous results. Those results have been verified. No one doubts that Iran is at least seeking nuclear power—and why shouldn't they?—but the fact they're willing to allow inspectors means more transparency. Anyway, if Iran was seeking weapons grade nuclear material, they'd build the infrastructure for a delivery system and just buy it off the black market. It'd take maybe a few months.
I'm looking at this from the context of Senator Obama's campaign promises. He's been beating his chest about Afghanistan from day one of running for president, so now that public support for Afghanistan is waning, in order for the president to keep that "I'm tough" aspect of his public persona, he has to talk tough to someone. That someone (someones) appears to be Pakistan and Iran. Because Pakistan has nuclear weapons, though, he can't talk tough to a centralized people about Afghanistan. Iran provides the same thing for President Obama that it did for President Bush: a boogeyman.

Anyway, the problem with the perpetual boogeyman is that if you make them look dangerous enough, the military/intelligence community is going to want to do something about it because that's their job. "If this is such a threat, let us take care of it!" President Obama opening up the gates on Iran like this is really dangerous because eventually people get scared enough that they want to take action. It's nearly impossible to keep the balance between fear and lethargy with people that like proactive options. It may work with American Idol watching Americans, but not the Pentagon.
I don't think you have a problem with President Obama because he's intellectual. Others clearly do, but you're not that kind of conservative. Any problems that you have with him would probably be the same you'd have with a Willravel administration: we have fundamentally different ideologies.