Anxiety-related illnesses are spiking all over our nervous nation, with insomnia now joining the ranks of obesity, hypertension and the popularity of reality TV shows. What’s got everyone staying up so late to bite their nails?

Forty-eight percent of Americans say they’re more stressed now than they were five years ago, and the same percent report regularly lying awake at night because of stress, according to a new study by the American Psychological Association.

…So what is it we’re worrying about while we stare at the ceiling all night? Primarily two things: money and work, the main woes for nearly 75 percent of Americans. That’s way up from 59 percent of us stressed out over those two things a year ago.

Perhaps not surprisingly, that percentage of the population correlates well with the segment that has had their standard of living dive in this “boom” economy. Yet immediate, personal concerns set aside, it’s hard to ignore the aggravation of worsening environmental factors. Five years ago, we were not yet in Iraq, not yet dreading global warming, even though we were - universally - in a post-9/11-and-government-defecit-inspired economic slump.

Even our Vice-Commander-In-Chief, Dick Cheney, seems to be afflicted by disturbed sleep patterns. Listening to the boring account of the record wildfires in California, he nodded off on camera.

What could be depriving the penultimate leader of the free world of his necessary rest? Answers to that are in the headlines, and are most thoroughly explored in a New Yorker article this month by Seymour Hersh, “Shifting Targets“. In one ominous word, Cheney’s burly boogeyman is, “Iran”:

At a White House meeting with Cheney this summer, according to a former senior intelligence official, it was agreed that, if limited strikes on Iran were carried out, the Administration could fend off criticism by arguing that they were a defensive action to save soldiers in Iraq. If Democrats objected, the Administration could say, “Bill Clinton did the same thing; he conducted limited strikes in Afghanistan, the Sudan, and in Baghdad to protect American lives.” The former intelligence official added, “There is a desperate effort by Cheney et al. to bring military action to Iran as soon as possible. Meanwhile, the politicians are saying, ‘You can’t do it, because every Republican is going to be defeated, and we’re only one fact from going over the cliff in Iraq.’ But Cheney doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the Republican worries, and neither does the President.”

As anybody listening to the race can tell you, most every leading Democrat supports a military option to limit Iran’s nuclear program. But apparently that either doesn’t pass muster with Cheney or doesn’t affect his feeling that it’s the current administration alone that would be - and thus must be - aggressive enough to launch or support a pre-emptive military strike on an Iranian nuclear program.

If I could take Mr. Cheney by the hand, I would sit him down and soothe him by mention of Mitt Romney. Romney is now leading significantly in New Hampshire, finally stirring that conservative base that he’s so ruthlessly courted by antics like throwing his pal Larry Craig under a speeding bus of moral judgment, declaring himself born-again Pro-Life and overall being a prudish prick whenever possible. Should Romney knock noggins with fellow frontrunner Clinton, chances are he could snap her over-moneyed, under-spined support and pull off a victory. And where would that put him so far as pushing the Big Red Button against Iran is concerned?

Romney, who has been advocating a hard line against Iran throughout his presidential campaign, said military action would be necessary if severe economic and diplomatic sanctions don’t convince Iranian leaders to abandon pursuit of a nuclear weapon.

“If for some reasons they continue down their course of folly toward nuclear ambition, then I would take military action if that’s available to us,” Romney told a crowd of doctors and nurses during a question period that followed a health care speech.

He added: “That’s an option that’s on the table. And it’s is not something which we’ll spell out specifically. I really can’t lay out exactly how that would be done, but we have a number of options from blockade to bombardment of some kind. And that’s something we very much have to keep on the table, and we will ready ourselves to be able to take, because, frankly, I think it’s unacceptable for Iran to have nuclear weapons.”

Doesn’t that sound butch enough? Perhaps not for Cheney, who has been fiercely at odds with a CIA that insists on downplaying Iran as even a potential threat. Cheney sees the Iranian nuclear weapon capability as a certainty, and thus sees America pre-emptively attacking it as a quid pro quo.

Given this, expect to stay glued to your television sets this spring, to watch a new round of pretty lights liven things up in the Middle East.