Posted by
PSU-Con on Saturday, August 12, 2006 10:32:18 PM
This post is a reaction to William F. Buckley's "Two Minutes to Midnight":
There's a reason Israel refers to resort to a nuclear strike as "the Samson option." Samson pushed down the pillars knowing that it would kill him along with his enemies. Israel never intended its nuclear weapons to be a "deterrent" to conventional war or terrorism, but as a deterrent to a nuclear strike against it and, so to speak, to go out with a bang if it failed as a deterrent. The only thing that might make Ahmadenijad think twice about nuking Tel Aviv is knowing that Tehran will be history. The U.S. has allowed North Korea to develop nukes despite the "great agreements" they signed to not do so. I do not trust the United States to form agreements to adequately protect U.S. interests, much less Israeli interests. The U.S. didn't bomb Iraq's nuclear reactor in the 80's - Israel did - and the U.S. will not bomb Iran's reactors. Israel likely will and, with U.S. help, can avoid any major international consequences in so doing. It's a nice little arrangement whereby Israel can take actions that the U.S. would be reluctant to take against common enemies and condemn Israel for doing so while claiming to not have had anything to do with it. Why would we change that? Kissinger has never been particularly concerned with Israel's security and, sadly, seems to take the hard right view that Israel is rather the cause of our friction with Islamic nations than our dearest ally in the region. This policy recommendation would solve the problem in his mind as well as the minds of Pat Buchanan and his ilk, leaving Israel to be wiped off the map, bringing "peace in our time," when the Arabs satisfy their blood lust on the destruction of the Zionist entity. In this delusion, the Muslims would then "be our friends again." The U.S. could mourn the dead Jews and set up a few dozen tax-payer funded exculpatory Holocaust II museums, and go on to enjoy great bounty from the newly cheap oil of our Arab friends. It's a pleasant delusion for those who are belligerant toward or at least apathetic to the fate of Jews in Israel, but for the rest of us (those who dwell in the real world) the loss of the only dependable ally in the region would result in far greater harm to the U.S.. Considering how Arabs declare all of their most glaring military failures against the tiny state of Israel to be great victories, an actual victory would only embolden them to focus all of their energies on "the great satan." Then who will we turn to when we need a nuclear reactor knocked out? France? Aren't they the ones selling the Muslim fascists this stuff to begin with? Our "European ally" Germany? This country is in grave danger. On the far right we have the traditional "do-nothing" isolationists and a growing Left wing army of suicidal "pacifists" parroting the old Right's isolationist claptrap. Great nations are destroyed from within. When arrogance or just plain complacency causes us to ignore our enemies and threats to our survival, how can we defend ourselves? The greatest threat to our national security is not from Islamic fascists, but from our own unwillingness to adequately defend ourselves. How much of England was in ruins before we got involved? At least then, Pearl Harbor motivated us. Today, just a handful of years from 9-11, both the hard Right and the Left are screaming for what I can only interpret as a call to surrender to an inferior enemy force. May Allah have mercy on us all! Expect none from his "martyrs."