Unlike their forbears, Americans today live a material life, not a spiritual one. Americans are far too likely to dismiss Ahmadinejad's words about obeisance to God and justice as the mumbo-jumbo of an "Islamist extremist."

The hubris of Americans and their belief in U.S. "exceptionalism" would cause them to reject Ahmadinejad's holding the U.S., its NATO puppets, and Israel accountable before the U.N. General Assembly. So successfully has Ahmadinejad been demonized by the propagandistic U.S. media that his speech would be dismissed out of hand by the arrogance of those who regard themselves as the salt of the earth.

Ahmadinejad echoes the statements of other world leaders when he says that U.S. power is rapidly waning. The U.S. "superpower" is dependent on foreigners for its financing. The U.S. cannot exist without Chinese financing, just as Europe cannot exist without Russian energy. America's European puppet regimes are rethinking the consequences of serving U.S. hegemony.

A "superpower" that cannot subdue Iraq and Afghanistan cannot subdue Russia and China. Do Americans and their neocon leaders believe that China and Russia will lend the U.S. the money to finance a war against themselves? Do they believe that Russia will keep America's NATO puppets supplied with energy if American aggression against Russia intensifies?

Warnings about America's financial dependency on foreigners have been ignored.

The bailout of the U.S. financial system is entirely dependent on the willingness of the Chinese, Saudis, and other foreigners to use their trade surpluses with the U.S. to purchase the U.S. Treasury instruments that must be sold in order to raise the money for Bush's bailout of the financial institutions.

The bailout of the U.S. government's budget has been going on for years, and it takes place every time the U.S. Treasury holds an auction of new American debt. But now the bailout by foreigners of the U.S. government is starting to turn into much larger sums that carry much higher risks.

Last week the Financial Times reported that Peer Steinbruck, the Finance Minister of Germany, said that the American financial crisis was "a fundamental rupture" and that "the U.S. will lose its status as the superpower of the world financial system."

Steinbruck is being charitable. The U.S. lost that status when it became dependent on foreigners to finance American consumption of foreign goods and U.S. goods and services produced offshore in addition to the war-swollen budget deficits of the U.S. government. Indeed, foreigners finance Americans' home mortgages. The Chinese alone hold about $400 billion of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bonds.

Is Ahmadinejad correct in his view that, with the waning of American hegemonic power, the world is on the verge of a better, more humane, and more just world? I wonder. Many Americans think of themselves as hard-nosed realists. They believe that it is a dog-eat-dog world: We have to get "them" before they get us. This paranoid view is the basis of U.S. foreign and military policy. It holds that America must not only have the military power to overwhelm any combination of possible enemies, but also America must prevent the rise of any country or countries that could challenge American power. This is a "diplomacy" without any concept of peaceful coexistence or good will among men. Yet, Americans think of themselves as a Christian nation.

Neocons and macho Republicans think we don't win our wars because we lack the balls to use enough force. They believe that the U.S. should nuke every country that doesn't follow our orders. Indeed, many American "conservatives" are lusting for the U.S. to nuke a country in order "to teach the world a lesson."

To accommodate this blood-lust, the Bush Pentagon revised U.S. war doctrine to permit preemptive nuclear attack even upon non-nuclear-armed countries. During the long cold war, preemptive nuclear attack was not a U.S. option.

Which vision of the future will win out? Ahmadinejad's policy of peaceful co-existence or neoconservative desires for American world dominance? The chance is too high for comfort that the hubris and arrogance of the United States will lead to a nuclear confrontation that will destroy the world.

People of good will hope that Ahmadinejad and Steinbruck's views will prevail and that the rest of the world will wake up and ask if they want to continue financing America's hegemonic ventures that threaten life on earth. The day the foreign bankers turn off the credit spigot to the U.S. Treasury, American arrogance will be tamed. g