In 1962, war was avoided by Khrushchev's willingness to accept Kennedy's hegemonic demands.
The United States is going to continue to punish Iran because of its defiance.
State formation has been a brutal project, with many hideous consequences. But the results exist, and their pernicious aspects should be overcome.
Governments don't control people like they used to.
If you want to control a population... give them a God to worship.
The fact that all normal children acquire essentially comparable grammars of great complexity with remarkable rapidity suggests that human beings are somehow specially designed to do this, with data-handling or 'hypothesis-formulating' ability of unknown character and complexity.