...are all about the superiority of one's own belief system above all others. Far-out Hinduists have taken the same path of intolerance.

Christianity and  Islam solidly believe in "doing unto others" and this underpins their centuries-long drive to convert others; Judaism doesn't like converts, it just goes straight after land under the ideology of "Greater Israel", a concept cloned into the US mindset under the banner of "Manifest Destiny".

Both enjoin the believer to "do unto others".

This is preposterous: just because I like Nathan's hotdogs or snails and froglegs and would love it if you "did" all of them "unto" me, does not give me the right to shove any of them down anybody's throat just because I know it's good them simply because my taste buds and tummy know how yummie they are to me.

The nice thing about polytheism, shamanism and pre-monotheistic belief systems is that they always have room to accommodate one more god. But when you have a jealous monogamous god, it breeds intolerance and provides justification for some leader to stand up and tell the troops "God is on our side".

Sorry: let the head of state and generals stand up and tell the troops that Monsanto is on our side and Carlyle Group agrees.

The Wall Street Journal has a problem:

Imagine you are Shane Bauer, one of two American hikers released from Iranian captivity last week. ...

On Sunday, Mr. Bauer said that he opposes "U.S. policies toward Iran which perpetuate this hostility"—as if American belligerence, and not Iranian tyranny and terror, causes tension between the countries. Though he criticized Tehran's "brutality," he gave credence to his captors' grievances when he said that "every time we complained about our conditions, the guards would immediately remind us of comparable conditions at Guantanamo"—as if the claims of a government that denies the Holocaust have any validity.

While neglecting to thank either President Obama or Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for helping secure his freedom, Mr. Bauer expressed gratitude toward Hugo Chávez, Sean Penn, Noam Chomsky and Yusuf Islam (formerly Cat Stevens).

Last year Mr. Chomsky wrote an "appeal to the Iranian leadership" on behalf of the captive hikers: "These young people represent a segment of the U.S. population that is critical of [U.S.] policies, and often actively opposed to them. Hence their detention is particularly distressing to all of us who are dedicated to shifting U.S. policy to one of mutual respect rather than domination." In other words, it would have been different had Iran kidnapped three Republican state-school football players on summer vacation, as opposed to a trio of "social justice" activists committed to exposing the sins of America. ... http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204422404576596832437307152.html?mod=djemEditorialPage_h

oh baby baby it's a wild world,
it's hard to get by just upon a smile

These tourists are starting to get really annoying... 

It's always the case when you go somewhere to see things for yourself...

What media coverage omits about U.S. hikers released by Iran
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/09/26/iran?

http://shadow.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/12/14/obama_should_apologize_to_iran

It seems odd that President Obama is willing to apologize for American actions in so many instances, but not for the actual violation of an internationally-recognized border by the United States in the conduct of an espionage operation. An American drone touched down 140 miles inside Iranian territory, and the White House is refusing to apologize for our aerial invasion.

... or course, Iran respects borders (see: rockets fired into Israel from the Iran-ally, Hezbollah, and attacks inside Iraq, etc.). 

"Is it possible that the Iranians actually have such evidence?

It's possible they have what they think is such evidence. That's the weird prospect raised by a much-discussed story published on Foreign Policy magazine's website Friday by Mark Perry." (http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/01/is-america-helping-israel-kill-iranian-scientists-the-view-from-iran/251434/)

Jacek, maybe your view into the soul of America is a big obscured. I can see it a bit better from Munich. ;-D

I don't see Americans obsessed or manic or whatever about Iran. Most Americans can't find Iran on a map, and most are too worried about their mortgage and bills and the economy to worry about if the mullahs are one step closer to a nuke. 

That's precisely what is frightening, John: people's indifference to the mania...

Here is an excerpt from my link:

Yes, there is a new U.S. special operations team known as Joint Special Operations Task Force-Gulf Cooperation Council, or JSOTF-GCC, at work near Iran and, according to Wired magazine’s Danger Room blog, we really don’t quite know what it’s tasked with doing (other than helping train the forces of such allies as Bahrain and Saudi Arabia). ...

And keep in mind, the covert war against Iran is ostensibly aimed at a nuclear weapon that does not exist, that the country’s leaders claim they are not building, that the best work of the American intelligence community in 2007 and 2010 indicated was not yet on the horizon.  (At the moment, at worst, the Iranians are believed to be working toward "possible breakout capacity" -- that is, the ability to relatively “quickly” build a nuclear weapon, if the decision were made.)  As for nuclear weapons, we have 5,113 warheads that we don't doubt are necessary for our safety and the safety of the planet.  These are weapons that we implicitly trust ourselves to have, even though the United States remains the only country ever to use nuclear weapons, obliterating two Japanese cities at the cost of perhaps 200,000 civilian deaths.  Similarly, we have no doubt that the world is safe with Israel possessing up to 200 nuclear weapons, a near civilization-destroying (undeclared) arsenal.  But it is our conviction that an Iranian bomb, even one, would end life as we know it. ...

Washington has declared the world its oyster and garrisons the planet in a historically unique way -- without direct colonies but with approximately 1,000 bases worldwide (not including those in war zones or ones the Pentagon prefers not to acknowledge).  That we do so, unique as it may be in the records of empire, strikes us as anything but odd and so is little discussed here.  One of the reasons is simple enough.  What’s called our “safety” and “security” has been made a planetary issue.  It is, in fact, the planetary standard for action, though one only we (or our closest allies) can invoke.  Others are held to far more limiting rules of behavior. 

As a result, a U.S. president can now send drones and special operations forces just about anywhere to kill just about anyone he designates as a threat to our security.  Since we are everywhere, and everywhere at home, and everywhere have “interests,” we may indeed be threatened anywhere.  Wherever we’ve settled in -- and in the Persian Gulf, as an example, we’re deeply entrenched -- new “red lines” have been created that others are prohibited from crossing.  No one, after all, can infringe on our safety. 

In support of our interests -- which, speaking truthfully, are also the interests of oil -- we could covertly overthrow an Iranian government in 1953 (starting the whole train of events that led to this crisis moment in the Persian Gulf), and we can again work to overthrow an Iranian government in 2012.  The only issue seriously discussed in this country is: How exactly can we do it, or can we do it at all (without causing ourselves irreparably greater harm)?  Effectiveness, not legality or morality, is the only measurement.  Few in our world (and who else matters?) question our right to do so, though obviously the right of any other state to do something similar to us or one of our allies, or to retaliate or even to threaten to retaliate, should we do so, is considered shocking and beyond all norms, beyond every red line when it comes to how nations (except us) should behave. ...

I have highlighted some of the parts that do justify the term mania in this context as defined by dictionaries, e.g.: