This is not to say that force should never be used, but there’s a limit to what it can accomplish in the long run. And if force is used too many times in stupid ways, then a lot of people become suspicious of the use of force at all. Consider 9/11 and the US response to it. The US suffers a huge terrorist attack at the hands of Saudis and Egyptians. It’s clear that the governments of these countries have been passively encouraging hatred of the West as a means of diverting attention from their own inadequacies. Does the US take strong action against these governments? No, because they think that the governments are their ‘friends’. Does the US take strong action against Iran, a strong and stable nation-state and the prime example of institutionalized Islamic totalitarianism in the world today, which could plausibly be ‘redirected’ to a more stable form of international behavior? No. The US attacks Afghanistan and Iraq, two ridiculously artificial creations of Westerners with no political or ethnic coherence, and gets involved in hopeless adventures in ‘nation building’, where the pieces to build nations don’t even exist. And when this predictably results in failure, the US has used up its allowed quota of rage in response to the 9/11 attacks and people aren’t willing to support further interventions.

And to Michael Reynolds–please learn a little more history before trying to participate in discussions like this.

We are in a war against radical Islam and no war was ever won by negotiation. Wars end with the victory of one side and the defeat of the other.

The is no solution to radical islam except wiping them out, by whatever means are necessary. The meeting yesterday between the mullah obamaham and Bibi tells Israel all they need to know, or just adds more, final weight to the truth that this administration is ready and willing to completely abandon Israel. This WILL NOT satisfy the muslims who have been brainwashed from birth that Israel and every Jew is bad and needs to be killed. Nothing will satisfy the arabs except complete and total world domination by Islam under an Islamic caliphate.

We are at war with Islam and there is a winner and a loser in any war. Peace with Islam cannot exist as any “peace” that islam has obtained has been through bloody and violent conquests throughout Islamic history. Islam will offer a Hudna, a TEMPORARY truce good for the maximum of ten years. During the Hudna, Islam is free to still attack those they have a truce with at any time. A Hudna is strictly used to buy time, to re-arm and reorganize. Israel’s only option is to lay waste to all of Iran’s nuclear facilities and as much of Iran’s military as possible. Screw the international opinions. Israel can deal with that AFTER Iran has been destroyed. While Israel is at it they will have to take out Syria and other Islamic states. Israel is on her own and needs to take care of Israel. The only tactic that has EVER stopped Islam was war, and that is where this is at.

There is no peace within islam, and with islam there can be no peace.

This must be an April fools joke. “ties with the Alawite”? You mean Al Assad and his tribe? Hilarious.

A Christian Maronite minority responsible for breaking up Lebanon? Over Nasrullah’s dead body. That’ll go down real well…

This is blog contribution is so much garbage. Freid must be naive for swallowing this stupidity.

Lots of luck there where a common language would not help the varieties of ethnicities, religions and political views that form a nasty and overlapping hodge-podge of admixtures going back centuries. It is hard to get coherent Nations when you don’t have coherent boundaries due to intermarriage and crossing cultures… often in the same neighborhood. The Balkans would still need about four times the number of Nations that grew out of the old Yugoslavia and still have strangenesses and major problems. Check out the assassination of Arch Duke Ferdinand… not the events after it but those leading up to it and you will get an idea of how things are there. You can go across three side-by-side river valleys and reliably find five ethnicities, four languages and three religions.

In the middle east here are the people you must convince to have a Kurdish state: Turks, Assyrians, Arabs. These are the ones that made sure there wouldn’t be a Kurdish State… that is the way they wanted it because they remember the last time the Kurds really got going with just one famous leader. Their neighbors don’t want it and Turkey purposely cut up the plan that was proposed to start just what the ever so wise theorist put forth. Not Europeans. Check out the treaties involved and where they started and where they ended and you will see the hands not of Europe but the locals.

Good luck on that linguistic state theory because it has some major potholes a mile across and five miles deep before you even get close to central asia or africa.

Remove US influence, and Iran will simply get the bomb,and use it as blackmail to take over the Shitte states in the Gulf and Iraq, use their patsies to take over Gaza and Lebanon, and cause a Shiite/foreign worker uprising to annex Saudi’s oil region (leaving the Saudi princes penniless).

The problem will then be solved. Israel will then have to chose to be annexed or annihilated.

This is tongue in cheek of course, but the Arabs are still tribal in thinking: Iran thinks as an empire.

I don’t see that language is any more a factor than religion, color, disparities of wealth or general disparities of power.

In fact our starting point here is Israel, which exists because people with whom they shared a common tongue — German Jews were highly assimilated, likewise French Jews and others — wouldn’t stop murdering them.

It’s not much of a theory if one can come up with dozens of plausible alternative explanations.

That is why Israel exists today. Israel has the power to keep Hamas, and Hizballah from murdering every one of them.

You want peace between Islam, and Israel? Then build a big wall, defend it, and support Israel. Trying to play both sides to keep the oil ticks happy will not work.

Over.