@Alencon
"Despite all the rhetoric I don't think Iran is crazy enough to use nuclear weapons. I can't say the same thing for Netanyahu however."
Agreed about Iran. Netanyahu using nukes, however? Come on. He's a political animal... out for votes, not blood. He'll scream a lot, but he does it to appear necessary, not because he's crazy. It's just posturing.
Sure, he's a bastard politician - but that's nothing new under the sun.
@Kanna:
"... the Serbs and the Croats were at each other's throats (when were they not?)"
I realize you're going for illustration rather than accuracy, but as a Croat I feel I should nevertheless put forth a correction :p (sorry if it gets a bit long)
The Serbs and the Croats don't have a history of just hate (even if there's plenty of that). Most of our mutual history has been quite peaceful. There were also numerous periods of actual cooperation and perhaps even friendship (more or less), for instance:
- the revolutions of 1848: the Croats and the Serbs within the Austrian Empire ally together, against a common enemy whom they saw as oppressors - the Hungarian revolutionary government.
Generally, there were plenty of more or less successful attempts at cooperation and cultural/political unifying while Austria-Hungary existed. This includes the Yugoslav idea, which was quite popular before Yugoslavia was created and disappointments accumulated.
- World War II. Despite the Ustashe (primarily Croat membership) and the Chetniks (primarily Serbs) making a mess of things and doing their best to alienate the nations, a huge number of both Croats and Serbs joined the Partisan movement... where they fought together and won the war.
Note: Yugoslavia was liberated with minimal outside intervention - there was only the Soviet Red Army which helped out in Vojvodina, but that was only a small chunk of Yugoslavia's territory.
And despite political bickering etc., the Croats and the Serbs did manage to coexist almost entirely peacefully in both Yugoslavias (and Austria-Hungary before that) for much longer than there was war between them.
... so yeah, the answer to your question is: We haven't been at each other's throats all that much. Sure, we often argue and sometimes shout, but it's pretty much a tradition now, rather than any intent at violence. Like an old married couple :P
