Wisdom with wine but not in the US

When Condoleezza Rice said back at the tail-end of the Israeli/Hizbollah war last summer that what we were witnessing was the "birth-pangs of the new Middle East," I just saw it as another outrageous piece of defending indefensible US policy in high-falutin' terms. But from today, it all becomes a lot clearer to me. In the Gospel of Mark Chapter 13 Verse 8, Jesus, talking about the signs of wars, earthquakes and famine as signs, says that these are the "birth-pangs" of the end of the world. Now, Rice is an educated women, but not as pragmatic as her predecessor Colin Powell was. Knowing that powerful evangelicals in America pressed for the Iraq war to speed up Armageddon (from Megiddo, a mountain on the Israeli-Lebanese border), then this alignment of phrases seems a bit too cosy to be denied. So, it appears that current US foreign policy is about realising the end of the world.
On another note, went to a Wine and Wisdom night yesterday with my parents, where we met with friends to form a team. Out of 14 teams, we finished in the top half of the table (just), which is probably a fair return for answering 75% of the questions correctly.