December 17, 2003

NEXT!:

Analyze this! (Tony Blankley, 12/17/03, Jewish World Review)

The other useful idea that Saddam's arrest has presented the world is that America cannot be stopped. By our sheer magnitude and organized persistence, we will eventually find all enemies and accomplish all objectives. The Romans sometimes were opposed by better generals and equally courageous warriors. The odd legion might even be massacred. But they maintained a Roman Peace for half a millennium by the perceived certainty of their ultimate success. Finding one rat in a hole in the ground in the middle of a vast land cannot help but be a vastly dispiriting fact to many of our current enemies.

Thus Saddam's arrest discloses to the world that America is both an instrument for exemplary human justice and a remorseless, inevitably successful enemy if we are opposed. That's not a bad day's work for the Fourth Armored Infantry Division.


Which is why it would be helpful to engage in the next regime change as quickly as practical--it hardly matters where, though Syria, Libya, Cuba, and North Korea seem good choices--in order to demonstrate that a minor resistance in the Sunni triangle won't deflect us from our purposes.

Posted by Orrin Judd at December 17, 2003 9:00 AM
Comments

Actually, the point of the Legions is that they were soldiers, not warriors.

Posted by: David Cohen at December 17, 2003 9:06 AM

I vote for Iran as the next target - to eliminate their developing nuclear threat and to shut down the largest source of terrorist funding and support.

Posted by: jd watson at December 17, 2003 9:13 AM

Iran's evolving towards relatively liberal democracy too fast for it to be worth forcing them, and it's preferable to have them enact the reform themselves.

Posted by: oj at December 17, 2003 9:17 AM

While I'd love to see it be Cuba just for the Leftwing Lunacy that would follow, going after Syria makes a lot more sense. If we are really at war with "terrorism", it's logical considering how the areas between Damascus and Beirut (like the Bekaa Valley) have been a sanctuary for decades. And at that point the whole so-called Palestinian problem should solve itself.

Posted by: Raoul Ortega at December 17, 2003 12:32 PM

If the US invaded Syria, the reactions in the West Bank and Gaza would be something to see.

And dollars to dinars (Rich Galen's phrase) that the celebrations in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv would never make the news, not with all the footage of American flags burning in the territories.

Posted by: jim hamlen at December 17, 2003 3:10 PM

I finally slogged to the end of Huntington's "Clash of Civilizations" last night. What a tedious tome.

Curious though, that he asserts almost all the save-the-west ideas that motivate Orrin but reaches exactly the opposite conclusion about what US policy ought to be.

Posted by: Harry Eagar at December 17, 2003 4:57 PM

I fear a direct attack on Iran may be counterproductive, so I vote for Syria: we're next door already, they have WMDs (and possibly some of Iraq's WMDs, too), and freeing Lebanon gives us a twofer.

Re Cuba, I hope we have a plan to kick over the regime the moment Fidel dies.

Posted by: PapayaSF at December 17, 2003 7:23 PM
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