That’s the conclusion that Joshua Muravchik reaches in today’s Wall St. Journal with his piece (subs req) entitled “Winds of War.”
Today, this same dynamic is creating a moment of great danger. The radicals are becoming reckless, asserting themselves for little reason beyond the conviction that they can. They are very likely to overreach. It is not hard to imagine scenarios in which a single match–say a terrible terror attack from Gaza–could ignite a chain reaction. Israel could handle Hamas, Hezbollah and Syria, albeit with painful losses all around, but if Iran intervened rather than see its regional assets eliminated, could the U.S. stay out?
With the Bush administration’s policies having failed to pacify Iraq, it is natural that the public has lost patience and that the opposition party is hurling brickbats. But the demands of congressional Democrats that we throw in the towel in Iraq, their attempts to constrain the president’s freedom to destroy Iran’s nuclear weapons program, the proposal of the Baker-Hamilton commission that we appeal to Iran to help extricate us from Iraq–all of these may be read by the radicals as signs of our imminent collapse. In the name of peace, they are hastening the advent of the next war.
The only thing that bullies respect is strength. Trying to achieve “peace” via negotions and diplomacy with those intent on destroying us at all costs who don’t believe that our Western ideals and beliefs are compatible with theirs will only prolong and exascerbate the inevitable. Western Civilization and Jihadist Barbarism cannot peacefully co-exist. It seems to me that diplomacy with Iran and Syria are useless (despite what Ambassador Pelosi may say). Time to send them a message that there will be consequences for their repeated acts of war and agression against the free world. And that will be the most effective way to achieve the “peace” that so many desire and the quickest way to “bring home the troops.”