An excellent essay and a convincing analysis of the situation.
What we can add now, information which probably wasn't available to the author when this went to the printers, is yesterday's announcement that SIX ARAB REGIMES now claim the right to develop nuclear energy, i.e., nuclear weapons.
The Arabs sat back for three years while the Old Euros talked and talked and talked. Meanwhile, France was probably selling the Iranian regime the technology they needed, and maybe Germany was, and certainly China, Russia, and North Korea.
Either we act now, or World War IV is going to turn nuclear. And Russia, which is already starting to work against us openly, will conclude that we are too weak to prevent them from acting even more openly.
I agree, too, that Bush has GOT to do something about the treasonous media that is crippling American will. For a start, he could tell his Justice Department that it's time to investigate The New York Times and the Washington Post for repeated treasonous leaks of top secret information vital to our enemies. And to make it crystal clear to CNN that those who are not with us are against us.
Same goes for China and their pi$$-boy... NKorea. When evil senses weakness... it acts. Often, lesser evils will be emboldened by an aggressor-state and either join it... or facilitate its victory.
The lesson being... it's always better to control events than let them control you.
As long as Bush allows this to continue, they will continue and get brazenly worse each and every time. These people are openly treasonous with impunity. They are in effect controlling this administration to fight a politically correct war in Iraq, but also giving aid and comfort to the enemy. If Bush's Department of Justice prosecuted them to the fullest extent of the law, this crap would stop overnight.
As to the politically correct war, one of the few really bad mistakes made was that Falluja, Najaf and Al Sadar should have been decimated and killed notwithstanding the fact Iraqis may not "like us." That has come back to haunt us. Anytime your actions are based toward trying to get some to like you've lost control over your situation.