Civilization rant

Okay, I need to vent a bit, and this is a convenient forum.
First, a confession. I played far too much Civilization IV in the past two days. During this brief time, I have formed an opinion that I would like to share.
Diplomacy still doesn’t work in Civilization.
As near as I can tell it has never worked properly.
I’ve heard people say that it is better and that there is nothing you can’t trade. But the problem is that there are some things that aren’t tradable. The human still isn’t on equal footing with the computer opponents.
Let me give you an example. In the current game I am bordered by the Incans. We’ve had our disagreements, including a small war long ago, but nothing major. (Well not major for me. They lost a town so it might mean more to them.) The Incans don’t like me, and I am fine with that. I understand. So they have closed off their borders so that I can’t just move through them. Fair enough.
The Aztecs live on a different continent far away. They have declared war on me, because they thought I was puny. (An apt observation because I never have a large standing army, preferring to get scientifically way ahead of everyone and then build troops when war happens.) Initially they went around the Incans and smote a couple of towns. Now, they apparently have an open border agreement with the Incans. So instead they pile their troops on the Incan border, where I can’t attack them without causing the Incans to declare war on me. Then they unleash a wave on my towns.
I would like to tell the Incans that I am upset by this. Theoretically I could, in the diplomacy options, ask them to cancel their open border agreement with my enemies, or I will declare war. But they don’t even allow that option; they have disabled it as unthinkable. So I can’t even give them a good reason why I am declaring war on them.
That is what annoys me the most. They can disable a negotiable point, but I can’t. So the French feel free to come bug me whenever they feel like it and ask me to stop trading with the Germans. The Germans have been great neighbors who have been at peace with me for thousands of years. They even share our religion of Confucianism. Breaking a trading agreement with them is unthinkable.
But the French are able to ask for it, and then get huffy when I don’t bow down to their demands. The French live across an ocean, and the Germans are on my front door. Who would you rather have on good terms. The French opinion of me goes down and I’m sure they are talking behind my back to the Japanese. And now there is no way I could possibly convince them to attack our mutual enemy, the Aztecs.
Is this how George Bush feels?
Freedom fries anyone?