We'd continue with our invasion of Iraq but with one big change - no more coalitions or U.N. resolutions. No more asking permission. Any preceived enemy would be fair game. Get them, get them all, and damn the critics.
If they had one, they'd have already used it. They are scrambling to put together a 'dirty' bomb.
A dirty bomb is not a nuke.
I wouldn't be surprised if the name "Keyser Soze" has popped up more than once in these discussions.
A catastrophic attack against the U.S. allows us to take the gloves off. And, lest we forget, the destruction of the WTC was a catastrophic attack. We've had some public inklings of what Bush is authorizing, including indefinite detention without charge, "dirty" intelligence methods and assassination without trial. And that's just the public stuff! You can rest assured the top secret stuff is far more colorful and creative.
Al Qaeda may or may not understand just how nasty the U.S. can get when the chips are down. On the one hand, they seem to think we're the Devil incarnate, yet on the other hand they carry on like we're nothing more than a bunch of wimpy Caspar Milquetoasts who couldn't hurt a fly. This bizarre ambiguity on their part suggests they really don't know who they're fighting. And that obviously isn't going well for them.
So far, it doesn't look like we've adopted a policy of torturing the families of Al Qaeda members to death in retaliation for terrorist attacks or "disappearing" anyone who publicly or privately supports Al Qaeda, whether materially or merely in principle. But if AQ ups the ante by killing tens or hundreds of thousands more Americans, our bullets will get bigger, our aim looser and our trigger fingers twitchier.
Allah help them if that happens, because no one else in Heaven, Hell or on Earth will be able to.