Every time America embarks
upon an ambitious global venture, it is only a
matter of time before the ever-present force of
American isolationism begins to rear its head.
With the recent conversation tending less toward
the question of “What do we need to do to win?”
and more toward the question of “When can we
bring the troops home?" it would appear that the
Go Away World crowd is starting to feel its
oats.
They need to go back to their cabins, and fast.
Recent events illustrate with exceptional
clarity that there has never been a worse time
for America to retreat from the world – not that
a good time is likely to come soon, if ever. The
troops are not coming home. Get used to it. The
nature of the world simply will not allow it.
Note: As Israeli Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon lies in critical condition
in a Jerusalem hospital – possibly but not
certainly still alive as press time looms –
Iran’s wacky
president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad reiterated his
hope that Sharon would die, and just for good
measure, he offered the same well wishes to
every other Israeli leader.
The same fellow asserts Iran’s right to develop
nuclear weapons, even as he insists Israel
should be “wiped off the map.” The Israelis have
vowed they will not allow Iran to join the
nuclear club, and are willing to go “2,000
kilometers” – the distance between Tel Aviv and
Iran’s suspected nuclear facilities – to prevent
it.
This is high stakes. The Israelis, of course,
have gone this route before – launching an
attack on Saddam Hussein’s nuclear facilities in
1982, much to the horror of the New York
Times and the United Nations. And the
Iranians? Well, we can’t imagine any sort of
irrational action from them, now can we?
The gamesmanship between Iran and Israel may
portend some of the most ominous possibilities
of the nuclear age. And in the midst of it all,
Sharon’s incapacity has the potential to throw
Israel’s leadership into chaos and uncertainty
at the very time when steadiness and resolve is
most needed.
With all this as background, I suppose you still
can’t blame some Americans – just a tiny few –
for preferring to focus on the asterisks in Jack
Abramoff’s rolodex, or on ways to blame George
W. Bush for the West Virginia miner deaths. But
you can blame all other Americans for taking the
tiny few seriously.
The world is a scary place, even if you’re not a
tiny, Jewish nation surrounded by 24
antagonistic neighbors who have you in the
bullseye of their would-be nuclear dartboards.
It gets scarier still when truly hateful regimes
start making no bones about their intention to
obliterate you, even as they develop the
weaponry to do the job and dare feckless
international bodies to do anything about it.
At least we always knew that if it really got
down to crunch time, Ariel Sharon would not lack
the fortitude to send the Israeli Air Force in
the general direction of Tehran – while the
option was still available. Sharon is no
stranger to the world’s enmity, nor has he ever
found it terribly important to try to avoid. His
one concern is, and has always been, the
protection of Israel’s security. This has not
always made him popular, even with his own
people. But when Israel has found itself in
crunch time – as it did in 2000 when Nobel Peace
Prize winner Yasser Arafat launched the brutal
Intifada – it has always turned to Sharon, the
one man with the courage and the credibility to
do whatever was necessary to stand up for
Israel’s security.
But a stroke-ridden Ariel Sharon, possibly in
his last days, can no longer be the ace up our
sleeve. The fantasy that multinational
negotiations will somehow prevent outlaw regimes
from obtaining or developing nuclear weapons can
no longer delude us.
Saddam Hussein, left to his own devices, would
have gotten nukes eventually. So will Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad. So will the next deranged despot.
This threat will only grow with the passing of
each decade, as nuclear technology becomes more
readily available and more outlaw scientists
become willing to sell their knowledge to the
highest bidder.
From a world like this, sorry to say, you don’t
just bring the troops home. You never return to
normalcy. You don’t have the luxury of giving so
much as a nod to those crying out, “Can we wrap
this up already?”
On September 20, 2001, President Bush emphasized
in his address to Congress that the War on
Terror would start, but not end, with Al Qaeda,
because it would require the destruction of
every terrorist organization of global reach,
along with every regime that might be inclined
to support or harbor them. This is why Bush
emphasized then – in spite of revisionist
history claiming Bush said it would be easy –
that the war would go on for a very long time.
Indeed it will. No one knows how the
Israeli-Iranian standoff will be resolved.
Hopefully it will not be by fire. But either
way, we can be sure it will not be the last such
standoff.
These are serious times, and they will only
become more serious. Those calling for the
troops to be brought home do not have a serious
understanding of the world’s present and future
state of affairs. They are not serious people.
Perhaps the only thing worse than people
listening to them is the prospect that people
might, in the future, elect them.
