Alexis,

I think the only way you can effectively stop the Islamic fanatics is to pre-emptively strike them: destroy their weapons. Retaliation, while it may serve its own purposes, is shutting the barn door after the horses have left.

But it seems most of the country has been browbeaten, during the past eight years, into a mood of rejecting the concept of pre-emption. The Bush Doctrine is dead. Cause of death: massive propaganda campaign by the political oppositions’ means of communication. The President either did not fight back or did so only feebly.