Arab self-rule was an interregnum from the beginning. Al Qaeda's bleary adherents long for a slice of time between the Arab conquest of the Middle East and the Seljuk Turks' taking it away from them five centuries later. Somehow the invincible power of Allah fell then, as it is falling now, to the ones with the bigger divisions.
The principal difference between then and now is that technology has given more destructive power into fewer hands, so much so that a core of fanatics wields a power proportionate to their threats, not their actual ability. This is a scenario custom-made for a despot. Of course in a straight fight the U.S. would wipe Iran from the map, and so would Russia and China. There will be no straight fight. There will be blackmail and intimidation, terror and propaganda, and one by one the weak will surrender because fighting under the conditions presented to them is futile. And many, especially but not exclusively on the left, will applaud the grand pageant until they are no longer spectators and no longer capable of becoming fighters.
That's what this is all about. Anyone dismissing the War On Terror as flailing against an abstraction is comforting him- or herself. Terror states and proxy armies aren't abstractions at all.
"Anyone dismissing the War On Terror as flailing against an abstraction is comforting him- or herself. Terror states and proxy armies aren't abstractions at all."
James Carville in support panties, Eleanor Clift, played that card on the week's McLaughlin Group. She said Hezbollah is like terrorism in that it is an idea and thus cannot be defeated.
Under those lights, Israel should just give up, which is what the Clift/Buchanans seem to be saying.
Mutual assured destruction doesn't work with people who are completely insane.