If you like this article, I can also recommend Postscript to the Three Conjectures.
Now it is Islam coming face to face with a challenge of how to handle the true divine fire. And the real dilemma is that the power behind the light of the stars is incompatible with the framework bequeathed by Mohammed. It may be the turn of the Faithful to die by Islam's own hand unless it can listen to the word that speaks from the very heart of the flame.
Wretchard describes the situation very accurately: The terrorist intent to destroy the United States, at whatever cost to themselves, has been a given since September 11. Only their capability is in doubt. This is an inversion of the Cold War situation when the capability of the Soviet Union to destroy America was given but their intent to do so, in the face of certain retaliation, was doubtful.
We are in a situation that is totally unlike anything we have prepared ourselves to face and, for that matter, anything that is remotely intelligible to the modern world, which thinks of wars as being directed at promoting the interests of states, structures or powers, and not aimed at obliteration, even of the enemy.
He makes an interesting distinction between a nuclear weapon or attack that could be repeated and one that would be, essentially, a one-time thing, produced by the terrorists almost by blind luck. The latter would require a limited response, striking only those immediately involved, whereas the former would require all-out nuclear war, because it would be clear that the enemy, Islam, would not stop until it had destroyed anything that was not part of it - or was destroyed first.
Very disturbing all, and none of the options look particularly good. I notice that Wretchard has been considering this for a number of years (the pieces were in 2003), but I think that few of the rest of us have really focused on it until now, when it is suddenly looming in our path and simply can't be avoided.