[MikefromOhio]

we're not nuking mecca you nut.

Beyond that, nuking mecca would ruin any chance we have at EVER stablizing Iraq, where we have something like 130K+ soldiers.

[muawiyah]

In the past I've advocated not nuking Mecca as well. In this instance, these people seem to have an absolute fetish about trashing New York (more than it ordinarily is by its own residents).

However, you stated we have people everywhere. To the degree our having personnel on the ground does serve as a shield for the locals against our use of nukes, but intriguingly Middle Easterners have elected to keep their two most culturally significant cities completely unguarded.

This leaves us few real targets.

No doubt we would need to withdraw our personnel from the area before retaliating for a WMD attack. On the other hand, they've already mounted a WMD attack against us and all our government has done is seek to cast the blame elsewhere.

This means they are probably safe from any meaningful US retaliation ~ even if they wiped out the NYC subway system and all the riders someday.