[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: For the life of me, I do not understand
> why United States insists on keeping total control of Internet for
> itself, rather than at least sharing control with other countries. I
I suspect that it has a lot to do with the amount of havoc that can be wrought by hijacking a top-level country domain as a deliberate act of war. The US government wants to (a) be able to do it to someone else, and (b) not have anyone else do it to it. It may also realize it's vulnerable.
(As I recall, the top-level domain for Iraq, .IQ, used to have its servers in Dallas, until the FBI raided them. Since then it's been turned back to the new government of Iraq.)
Gordon L. Burditt