When the world's only superpower doesn't have what it takes to act like the world's only superpower Tom Smith

The Bush doctrine doesn't look so bad now, does it?  A nutcase regime in Asia is about to get nuclear weapons and not long after that the missiles to send them to Israel, Europe, Saudi Arabia and after that, who knows.  The regime is populated by religious fanatics who deny the Holocaust and profess the desire to wipe Israel off the map in all apparent sincerity.  Normally, one could rely on the Israelis to take care of themselves, but in this case, the crazed regime has gotten too powerful for the Israelis to handle.  Just to fill out the picture, the folks building the nukes just stole an election and are imprisoning, torturing and killing into silence their domestic critics.  These leaders are backed up by a praetorian guard of fanatics, a Waffen-SS if you will, to switch to another entirely appropriate comparison, on whose secret bases (for what is a geopolitical villain without secret  bases?) the nuclear weapons are being gestated. 

So who ya gonna call?  Obviously, patently, indisputably the only people who can stand up to these frightening thugs are us.  But as luck would have it, we are presently governed by the party who strategy is to talk to death the people whose idea of dialog is to throw their opponents in prison and beat them with hoses until they change their minds.

I am perfectly willing to concede that Bush and his men bear a lot of blame for allowing things to get to this point.  But this point is where we now are, and I wish I had the faintest hope our current President was up to this, uh, challenge.  But I don't.

Comments

[dearieme]

I fear that your young President is proving to be rather a creep. That's three duds in a row; what a pity. But then I thought you were bonkers to remove Bush the Elder.

[Jonathan]

The democracies seem to be suffering a perfect storm of creepy leadership.

[Frank]

So what should he do?