The analogies between Islam and the former Soviet Union are few and microscopic in comparison.
Iraq and the entire mid east, is small potatoes compared to the real, global threat that the former Soviet Union posed. At one point in our history, many if not all of our major cities were targeted with ICBMs. This was not a superman movie, it was *real*.
Yes and no. The Soviet Union was always a far more formidible military threat than anything the Arab world could throw at us. Multiply the Arabs times 10 and the Soviets were still more dangerous. However, the Soviets always acted rationally in their rivalry with us. They wanted to take over the west with its people and industry more or less intact.
Muslim fundamentalists, by comparison, don't care too much about human life or western civilization. If you gave most Wahabbis the choice of 1 billion dead, but Islam wins the world, or the status quo, they would take the 1 billion dead. They would nuke New York or Chicago in a heartbeat if they could get their hands on a nuke. So they present a different threat, one that is militarily weak, but one which presents a more immediate and real threat of millions of dead Americans than the Soviets ever did.
This irrationality is what requires us to wipe them out entirely all over the globe, not just win battles, but destroy the movement. Because someday, somewhere, they will slip one past the goalie, and then, more people than died in the Civil War will be gone in an instant.
Thank you for stating that. Lately, I have been hearing a smattering of criticism against President Reagan for "ignoring" the Islamic threat. But, let's get real; one President, even a President elected for a 2nd term, cannot do everything. He must prioritize, which is what President Reagan did and did correctly.
He did get our hostages back, and he did bomb Libya, sending the Middle Easterners a clear message that he was no Carter and that they'd better back off if they knew what was good for them. So then... he could roll up his shirtsleeves and address the greater threat: A patient, deviously calculating, and ever expanding "Evil Empire" that had the capacity to destroy every last one of us with the simple push of a button.
In the early 80's, communism was being exported from the USSR all over the globe. It popped up in Grenada, reared its head in Central America; It kept getting closer and closer to our shores. It had to be stopped before we were backed into a corner, and eventually ended up with the President of the USA and the President of the USSR both staring each other down, each one with his finger on "The Button".
I think President Reagan also understood the damage that was being wreaked by our domestic enemies as well (Lord knows, he took enough flack from them). Think about it. What if this ultimate showdown between the USA and the USSR had occurred during Clinton's watch?! It was Clinton who'd enacted the "madder than M.A.D." policy that we needed to be hit with nukes BEFORE we could retaliate. If the old Soviet Union had been alive and well during Clinton's term, it's very likely that the current "browbeaten yet still standing" America that we all know and love would definitely not exist ideologically (and possibly not even exist physically) today.
Fortunately, President Reagan was wise enough to see that the very thing that made the USSR such a great threat, its drive to expand and then strangle the life out of everything it engulfed, could also be exploited as a weakness. He was able to kneecap the Soviets, because the USSR had gotten too big to sustain its own britches.
I really believe it was the merciful hand of God, that placed President Reagan at the helm of America at a time when we stood at a most perilous crossroads. We will never know "The Fate That Could've Been" thanks to this bold and loyal man, who stood his ground even as a multitude of enemies surrounded, attacked, and ridiculed him without ceasing. God bless and keep him, and may Ronald Reagan spend all eternity in a shining city above the highest hill, where the streets are paved with gold.