Diplomacy does not seem to work with the Syrians or with the Iranians. We have been dealing with the Iranians diplomatically on their nuclear capacity for months. They remain obdurate and dishonest, and now their clients have unleashed war against Israel. The only recourse might well be the recourse taken by Israel in June 1981 when Israeli aircraft destroyed Iraq's nuclear facilities. Many, even many conservatives, get very agitated by such suggestions. Well, allow me to remind them of President Ronald Reagan's reaction when his National Security Adviser informed him in the Oval Office of the Israeli bombing. They used bombers we had sold them, the adviser harrumphed. "Well," said the Old Cowboy, "boys will be Boys." That, of course, is how Reagan expressed what is the oldest idea known to man: philosophical acceptance of the inevitable.
The West will eventually get tired of dimploacy and nation building, writes Victor Davis Hanson.
Any new policy of retaliation -- in light both of Sept. 11 and the messy efforts to birth democracies in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon and the West Bank -- would be something of an exasperated return to the old cruise-missile payback. Yet in the new world of Iranian nukes and Hezbollah missiles, the West would hit back with something far greater than a cruise missile.
If they are not careful, a Syria or Iran really will earn a conventional war -- not more futile diplomacy or limited responses to terrorism. And history shows that massive attacks from the air are something that the West does well.
But who's going to go after the terror sponsors? Israel? The US?
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