[RightWhale]

Sure, against some military targets more boom is more effective. Against terrorism it would be next to ineffective and probably work against you in the long run. We also don't have enough nukes in the world, and didn't even before the SALT reductions, to turn an entire country to glass unless the country was particularly small. A city would be wrecked, but destruction of more than a handful of cities would be impossible. Use of nukes would only give birth to yet another generation of people with a cause.

[Peter J. Huss]

Use of nukes would only give birth to yet another generation of people with a cause.

Like post war Japan? They were fanatical before the surrender.

[eno_]

The U.S. could, if it wanted to, destroy every major Moslem city on Earth in under 45 minutes, and have more than enough nukes left over for a credible deterrent against anyone (for that matter, everyone) else. Enough pre-SALT warheads are in storage to restock quickly.

That said, such an attack would be pointless. The thing we must do, and are failing to do in Iraq, is to enshrine religious freedom in Islamic nations' constitutions. Until Moslems are free to leave their religion, and the West makes a forthright case why Islam is a retrograde cult, Islam is more of an "Iron Curtain" than was the Soviet empire.