What's Next?

Stanley Kurtz's piece at NRO is particularly worth reading today, following the announcement this morning about the terrorist plot to bring down airliners (which is chillingly similar to Operation Bojinka, the 1995 precursor to 9/11). He calls himself a gloomy hawk, because he believes much more killing is coming...

My concern is that our underlying foreign-policy dilemma calls for both hawkishness and gloom — and will for some time. The two worst-case scenarios are world-war abroad and nuclear terror at home. I fear we’re on a slow-motion track to both.

No, I don’t think our venture in Iraq has gotten us into this mess. I think this mess has gotten us into Iraq. And the mess will not go away, whatever we do. Our Islamist enemy has proven himself implacable — unwilling to relent in the face of either dovish or hawkish policies. That means we’re facing years — maybe decades — of inconclusive, on/off (mostly on) hot war, unless and until a nuclear terror strike, a major case of nuclear blackmail, or a nuclear clash among Middle Eastern states ushers in a radical new phase.

...The West is on a collision course with Iran. There will either be a preemptive war against Iran’s nuclear program, or an endless series of hot-and-cold war crises following Iran’s acquisition of a bomb. And an Iranian bomb means further nuclear proliferation to Egypt and Saudi Arabia, as a balancing move by the big Sunni states. With all those Islamic bombs floating around, what are the chances the U.S. will avoid a nuclear terrorist strike over the long-term?

You don’t believe that dovishness and negotiations will fail? Just wait till President Hillary tries to buy off the Iranians with a “grand bargain.” Just wait till a nuclear Iran is unleashed to make further mischief. A seemingly futile and endless occupation of Lebanon once split Israel down the middle, breeding an entire generation of Israeli doves. Now Israel is a united nation of gloomy hawks, transformed by the repeated failure of every gesture of peace, and by the reality of their implacable foe. I’m betting that someday we’ll all be gloomy hawks, too. As for me, I’m already there.

(hat tip: Andrew Sullivan) I'm worried that we're on the verge of something terrible that should be apparent to us, but will only appear glaringly obvious after the fact. I think John Batchelor's column may be something prescient. I'm a big student of history -- and history essentially shows that people often make the same mistakes over and over.

Believeing that we need to come home from Iraq and that this will be a step toward solving our problems is a mistake. Yet many of our fellow citizens think this to be true. Never mind that we've tried this -- abandoning Beirut in 1986 after the barracks bombing, and abandoning Somalia after chaos led to casualties, and not pusuing al Qaeda on a war footing after Khobar towers... hell, take it all the way back to Tehran in 1979. Those students who stormed the U.S. embassy, supported by their fanatical government, committed an act of war against U.S. territory. What was our response? A quarter century has passed, and we're still arguing amongst ourselves how to deal with a death cult of fanatics who have hijacked their religion and glorify dying in a way that their supporters no longer fear death. Bernard Lewis' column earlier this week about August 22nd has me happy that I won't be in DC that day, but also elaborates the other point...

A passage from the Ayatollah Khomeini, quoted in an 11th-grade Iranian schoolbook, is revealing. "I am decisively announcing to the whole world that if the world-devourers [i.e., the infidel powers] wish to stand against our religion, we will stand against their whole world and will not cease until the annihilation of all them. Either we all become free, or we will go to the greater freedom which is martyrdom. Either we shake one another's hands in joy at the victory of Islam in the world, or all of us will turn to eternal life and martyrdom. In both cases, victory and success are ours."

In this context, mutual assured destruction, the deterrent that worked so well during the Cold War, would have no meaning. At the end of time, there will be general destruction anyway. What will matter will be the final destination of the dead--hell for the infidels, and heaven for the believers. For people with this mindset, MAD is not a constraint; it is an inducement.

Keep in mind, as Donald Sensing notes, that the death toll from this bomb plot could have dwarfed 9/11 (hat tip: Instapundit). And keep in mind some of the other stories in the news right now. In light of all of this, maybe Jim Geraghty asks the right question...

NBC is quoting al-Jazeera about a report of a foiled hijacking of Qatar Airways plane.

Is today some sort of signifcant date? Did something happen in the past couple days that was the "go" signal around the world?

I don't know that we want to know the answer. I suppose we'll find out.