I am not sanguine.
As I’ve been saying for years, we are in the midst of a civil war in this country every bit as divisive and important as the one that took place in the 19th Century. Fortunately so far bloodless, this conflict will determine the shape and character – and possibly the very existence -- of our nation as we move forward. The schism occurred during the Vietnam War era, when irrational idealism suddenly became a political force on the American Left. This idealism is grounded not in a realistic worldview based in practicality and traditional American values, but in a philosophy based on wishful thinking, naïve assumptions about the level of the threat posed to us by our opponents on the national stage, and an over-riding belief in the innate goodness of man which leads to a dangerous conviction that our opponents will obey the same rules of international conduct that we do.
Compounding the threat to America is the fact that we are engaged in a war with Islamo-Fascist terror. The seed of this war can be found in Jimmy Carter’s ineffectual response to the Iranian seizure of the American Embassy (United States sovereign territory) in 1979. One must understand that in the Middle East, strength of action – not hollow rhetoric -- is culturally respected. Carter’s incompetence in dealing with the crisis was perceived in the region as a sure sign of American weakness. It’s interesting to note that after 444 days in captivity, the hostages were released 20 minutes after the inauguration of Ronald Reagan, a sure sign that Khomeini knew that in Reagan he was dealing with someone of a completely different ilk than the fumbling and weak Carter.
However, by that point the stage had been set. While the loss of the Vietnam War could be seen as an anomaly, that loss being due to the political activism of the Left and the news reportage of the time (General Vo Nguyen Giap, Vietnam’s chief military strategist, is quite clear on this in his books), the fact that a liberal President (Carter) repeated the same mistakes inevitably led to the perception of America’s lack of resolve due to internal conflicts between the Left and the rest of America.
This emboldened our enemies, as typified by the actions of those like Muammar Qhadaffi and Saddam Hussein, who took both overt and covert action targeted against American interests, if not always directly against America itself. Of course, the perception of our weakness culminated in the attacks of 9/11/01, and the loss of over 3,000 American lives on American soil.
Iran’s current President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is strident in his demands that Iran be allowed to develop nuclear capability, and unwavering in his anti-Israel and anti-American rhetoric. The question then becomes: what will he do if he develops nuclear weapon capability?
To listen to the American Left, Iran will really pose no threat; they have to be rational people, after all, and what’s one more nuclear-capable nation on the international scene? In spite of Britain’s disruption of a plot to destroy several America-bound airliners, the Left is more concerned with the right of terrorist operatives to make unmonitored cell phone calls.
This is horribly naïve. There’s no reason in the world to believe that Ahmadinejad won’t make a nuclear device available to his perceived allies – those such as Hezbollah – to move forward his (and other Islamic fanatics’) dream of a defeated America. Particularly as we are perceived by them at this stage of the game as a paper tiger. They are confident any response we may make, crippled as we are by our own internal disagreements, will be ineffectual at best.
I have read that the crater of the detonation of a nuclear device is lined with glass due to the fusion of sand caused by the intense heat.
What is going to happen in this country if a portable nuclear device, carried by a small cell of committed Islamo-fascists, is detonated in one of our major cities, leaving behind a glass-lined crater? What if Washington, DC, or New York, or LA, or San Francisco is turned into a City of Glass?
The death of 3,000 people united this country for a short time, until the Left once again veered off onto their own path. But what will be the reaction if the body count is not 3,000, but 3,000,000? I don’t think I’d want to be a known Leftist in this country after that event.
Unfortunately, I’m reaching the conclusion that just such an event is becoming ever more inevitable.