or Nanking; whichever city Allah has elected to erase, I will make it
my personal responsibility to see to it that the other isn't slighted,
either.

However, if your Excellencies decide to accede to my modest and
reasonable demands, not later than one week from today, this
test-launching will be cancelled as unnecessary. Of course, that would
leave unsettled a bet I have made with Dr. Hong Foo--a star sapphire
against his favorite Persian concubine--that the explosion of a
lithium bomb will not initiate a chain reaction in the Earth's crust
and so disintegrate this planet. This, of course, is a minor
consideration, unworthy of Your notice.

Of course, I am aware that both your Excellencies have, in the past,
fomented mutual jealousies and suspicions among the several
"autonomous" republics under your respective jurisdictions, as an
instrument of policy. If these peoples were, at this time, to receive
full independence, the present inevitability of a pan-Asiatic war on a
grand scale would be replaced only by the inevitability of a
pan-Asiatic war by detail. Obviously, some single supra-national
sovereignty is needed to maintain peace, and such a sovereignty should
be established under some leadership not hitherto associated with
either the former UEESR or the former UPREA. I humbly offer myself as
President of such a supra-national organization, counting as a matter
of course upon the whole-hearted support and co-operation of both your
Excellencies. It might be well if both your Excellencies were to come
here to Kabul to confer with me on this subject at your very earliest
convenience.

The Peace of Allah be upon both your Excellencies!