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[Kuruharan]

Iluvatar is pleased by the music of the Ainur, until Melkor asserts his own dissonant themes.

Exactly, my point is that they did not do such a good job dealing with the themes of Melkor. Iluvatar allowed things to stand as they were because He could create greater glory through them.
Yes, they created the world, but that was not the problem. The problem was a lack of understanding of their enemy and of their charges.
I understand that their limited understanding of the inhabitants of Ea is because they were the Theme of Iluvatar alone.
However, their lack of understanding of Melkor is a tremendous problem on their part. In order to successfully defeat an enemy you need to understand them, how they think, what they are going to do, and how you can effectively counter their moves. Yes, they ultimately defeated Morgoth (and through their agent[s] Sauron) but only after much ruin, loss, and suffering. And evil still continues. The best wars (aside from those that don't happen at all) are those that are as brief as possible. The war between Morgoth and the Valar went on for centuries, the Valar seemed unable (or unwilling) to strike a decisive blow. When they did eventually defeat him the Valar had him penned up, but then turned him loose. Big mistake.

None of this is intended to say that anyone in their position would have done any better. Depending on your view of fate in Middle earth, one could be led to believe that this was all determined beforehand to show that Iluvatar is the only One who gets it right all the time.

Or, if you're a free-willer (I tend to be) it was this way because ultimately the glory of the whole Music would be greater at The End.
Or maybe a combination of the two. [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]