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And with the Middle East flush with petrodollars, non-European militaries have bought better and more plentiful weaponry than that which is possessed by the very Western nations that invented and produced those weapons.

Apparently we were hoping that they would only use them against each other.

Any violence that would break out would probably be due instead to either American or Israeli imperial, preemptive aggression — and both nations could be ostracized or humiliated by European shunning and moral censure.

That was a definite logic error on the Europeans part. America was founded as a revolution against European Monarchical Power.

The author makes some great points. One should note however that military history is full of incidents where honorable people went in quickly to rescue captured comrades only to find themselves in a deeper trap. The Iranians did not just send some patrol boats in to capture the British sailors. My guess is that the main British patrol vessel would have seen a volley of anti-ship Cruise Missiles headed its way in no time flat if it had aggressively intervened. Guess what happened to the first Israeli tank that went after the kidnappers of the Israeli soldier on the Lebanon border last year ? It ran over an IED booby trap and was destroyed. When I was on a late night London street a few years ago and an Irish Leprechaun had scammed a 20 pound note off me, I had a choice of chasing him down some dark streets in his territory, or letting the 20 pound note disappear while I worked hard and smart to earn it back. Hopefully in the current crisis the British will get there sailors back. Then a well laid out plan of righteous retribution can be carried out.

For example, that lone Iranian gas refinery might have some type of unfortunate 'accident' that puts it out of commission for a few months.

From a 18 March Sunday Times article about Iran's threatened revenge for western "kidnapping" of Iranian army officers.

In an article in Subhi Sadek, the Revolutionary Guard’s weekly paper, Reza Faker, a writer believed to have close links to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, warned that Iran would strike back.

“We’ve got the ability to capture a nice bunch of blue-eyed blond-haired officers and feed them to our fighting cocks,” he said. “Iran has enough people who can reach the heart of Europe and kidnap Americans and Israelis.”

Go back and read that first quoted sentence. There's no religious demagoguery there. These people want a fight, pure and simple. They smell blood, and they think they're tougher than we are. I think they're genuinely confident of victory.

I've heard it said that a "military solution" is "off the table" when it comes to Iran because we hope the Iranian population will do the job for us. Guess what? The longer these games continue, the weaker the West looks, and the stronger and bolder the mullahs and Ahmadinejad look. Nothing will make them more popular with their own people. They're standing up to the closest ally of the greatest power in human history, and they're winning. This is exactly the sort of thing that ensured Hitler's long-term control of Germany. Without the Rheinland, Anschluss, and the Munich Agreement, the Nazi regime might have died of its own inherent unpopularity. Instead, they were allowed to perform the "miracle" of making Germany a great power again. If Ahmadinejad is seen making Persia a great power once more, does anyone really believe his own people will stop him?

The choice is pay now or pay later. Our military may not be properly aligned to start the fight, but it had better get that way sooner rather than later. The longer we take to put an end to this, the bloodier it's going to be.